How Not To Be Starstruck
How Not To Be Starstruck
Portia MacIntosh
Nicole Wilde’s life is one of sell-out gigs, bunking on tour buses, trashing hotels and partying with the band all night long. But she’s not in the band. She is a music journalist, paid to be the world’s greatest groupie– and she loves it!Nicole has the party lifestyle – and the hangovers to prove it – but no one stops her in the supermarket on a bad hair day. Until she is papped in an incriminating position with recently married mega-star Dylan King of The Burnouts and the tabloids start hounding her. This isn’t so fun. Especially when her make-up is a mess and she hasn’t yet had a chance to clean her teeth.Dylan accuses her of ruining his marriage. His handsome PR agent, Charles, calls her a tart. She has to take gorgeous Luke from Two For the Road to hospital after a drug incident. And she’s dropped her mobile phone in the bath! Too much celebrity lifestyle for one week? Time to slow down and take stock? Maybe for somebody else. But Nicole Wilde is going to come out fighting!Don't miss Portia MacIntosh's linked novella Between a Rockstar and a Hardplace to see where Nicole started out!Praise for Portia MacIntosh'How Not to be Starstruck was impossible to put down, hilarious, fun, flirty and packed with excitement.' - Victoria Loves Books'A brilliant story full of fun, gorgeous rockstars, big egos and great friendships.' - A Novel Thought'if you are looking for a fictional tale of outrageous excess and the rock star life it is well worth a read.' - Books with Bunny'For a Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl meets "Life of the rich and famous" -vibe: get yourself a copy of both Portia's novels. Very, very enjoyable read and can't wait for more!' - M's Bookshelf'I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is a must read for any one fancying a light heart and humour read, which can be devoured in one sitting.' - Compelling Reads
Nicole Wilde’s life is one of sell-out gigs, bunking on tour buses, trashing hotels and partying with the band all night long. But she’s not in the band. She is a music journalist, paid to be the world’s greatest groupie– and she loves it!
Nicole has the party lifestyle – and the hangovers to prove it – but no one stops her in the supermarket on a bad hair day. Until she is papped in an incriminating position with recently married mega-star Dylan King of The Burnouts and the tabloids start hounding her. This isn’t so fun. Especially when her make-up is a mess and she hasn’t yet had a chance to clean her teeth.
Dylan accuses her of ruining his marriage. His handsome PR agent, Charles, calls her a tart. She has to take gorgeous Luke from Two For the Road to hospital after a drug incident. And she’s dropped her mobile phone in the bath! Too much celebrity lifestyle for one week? Time to slow down and take stock? Maybe for somebody else. But Nicole Wilde is going to come out fighting!
Don’t miss Portia MacIntosh’s linked novella Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place to see where Nicole started out!
Also available by Portia MacIntosh
Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place
How Not to be Starstruck
Portia MacIntosh
Copyright (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Portia MacIntosh 2014
Portia MacIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472094681
Version date: 2018-07-23
Contents
Cover (#ucabcefe6-5f5e-565e-9abd-48b525385cb2)
Blurb (#u39a527c5-2850-52f1-b127-047f56af8dab)
Book List (#ua5d6a5c4-6475-5e8f-987e-31800dd5178b)
Title Page (#u50eedd0f-e7d3-5352-a8c3-1df08e7165ca)
Copyright
Author Bio (#ua2c21c6f-65bc-5940-8db6-1763268a1476)
Acknowledgements (#u6c58eb7e-1ced-53de-9231-eeceaf157d16)
Dedication (#u06fe0db1-8fa7-5480-85e7-a245bf601709)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher
When she was fifteen years old, Portia MacIntosh fell in with a bad crowd…rockstars. After disappearing on tour and living the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle for a few years, Portia landed a job in the music industry – but only so that she didn’t have to join the real world just yet.
Now in her twenties, Portia is ready to spill the beans on the things she has witnessed over the years. Well, kind of. If her famous friends knew that she was borrowing their lives to inspire her fiction, they would stop inviting her on tour and banish her from the inner circle. Then she really would have to rejoin the real world, and she’s still not ready for that.
Portia only started writing novels to share her secrets, but then she realised she actually quite liked writing – maybe even more than she likes living on a bus with a bunch of smelly boys – and has since tried her hand at writing about other things.
Check out Portia’s blog at: www.portiamacintosh.tumblr.com (http://www.portiamacintosh.tumblr.com)
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh (https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh)
…and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia (https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia)
Massive thanks to the lovely HQ Digital UK team – especially Lucy, Victoria and Jo.
Thank you to all my music industry friends – if you guys didn’t do half the hilarious/terrible/unbelievable things that you do, I wouldn’t have anywhere near as much material to work with.
A big thank you to my Gosling Girls - Megan, Kirsty, Victoria and Laura - and to all the wonderful people who read and reviewed Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place.
And finally, the biggest thank you of all to my family and my band boy. You put up with an awful lot and without you none of this would have been possible.
For my band boy
Chapter One (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
The Fairy Tale
I wonder who started the bloody ridiculous rumour that women can multi-task effortlessly. I’d love to know so that I can send them a photograph of me right now (obviously someone else would have to take it for me) epic-failing my way to the office.
It’s 11 a.m. on an exceptionally cold Monday morning and I’m late for work. Again, and as always. Currently dodging my way through the busy streets of Leeds, I’m desperately trying not to drop anything. In my right hand I have four take-away cups of coffee – in a holder obviously, I’m good but I’m not that good – my massive Mary Poppins-style handbag hooked on my left arm and my mobile phone in my left hand. It’s still in my hand because, as I was leaving Starbucks, I received a call from work and without a free hand to put my phone back in my bag, that’s where it’s going to have to stay.
Thankfully work is just around the corner from my flat, although I was supposed to be at the office by 10 a.m. Stopping at Starbucks has only made me even later but I’m hoping the coffees will score me some brownie points with the staff. If you can’t be on time, the least you can do is suck up to people.
Just one more road to cross and I’ll be there. Balancing on the edge of the curb in my silly yet beautiful shoes, I feel like the slightest breeze could knock me off my feet. As the green man appears, I step off the pavement with the rest of the sheep. Eyeballing the window of my office for angry faces, I make it half way across the road when something hits me – literally hits me. As I fall to the ground in what feels like super-slow, Matrix-esque motion (although it probably doesn’t look quite so graceful to the people around me), my impressive coffee-handbag-phone balancing act comes to an abrupt end. Landing flat on my back, right there in the middle of the road, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Was I hit by a bus? I can hear people fussing around me and the impatient blaring of car horns. They can piss off, I could be dead...although if I’m thinking that, chances are I’m probably still alive, right?
As I run my hands down my body to check for major injuries, I feel that my skirt is up around my waist. I have never been happier to be wearing such thick tights, God bless the crappy, cold weather we have up north.
There’s a strong smell of coffee coming from the double-digits’-worth of Starbucks puddle on the road next to me, which thankfully hasn’t trickled towards me, although I am tempted to roll over and lap it up.
Despite having the wind knocked out of me, I think I’m going to make it.
‘I am so sorry, let me help you up,’ I hear a deep, apologetic voice insist as a hand reaches for mine.
Flat on my back and in the middle of the road, with my skirt hitched up around my waist, I am in no position to be declining help, so I grab the stranger’s hand and let him yank me to my feet.
‘Here’s your phone, I hope it isn’t broken. Shit, there are a couple of scratches on it,’ the stranger informs me as he hands me my fairly battered-looking phone. My phone is noticeably scratched, but I don’t tell him that most of the damage probably occurred the time my phone took a tumble down the stairs, bashed against something in my handbag, magically escaped my grasp, etc. In fact, my phone has been dropped so many times it’s a miracle that it still works. I prod a button on the front with a very shaky finger and my trusty phone springs to life as usual. What a trooper. Only after making sure my phone is OK do I actually look the only person who stopped to help me in the eye. Ushering me back across the road (the side I don’t want to be on) is an absolutely gorgeous man. Shit, I can’t believe he saw me lying in the road like that. He’s wearing a very flashy suit and clutching a fat, important-looking file stuffed with papers. Oh, and he has one of my shoes tucked under his arm, which explains why I’m limping – I thought I’d snapped my ankle or something.
‘Thanks for helping me. I’m not sure what happened, I was crossing the road and—’ I stop mid-sentence. The truth is, I have no idea what happened.
The good-looking stranger sits me down on the nearest bench.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks me with a very concerned look on his face. He looks like every portrayal of Prince Charming I have ever seen in the movies, with an added (and well-used) gym membership thrown into the mix.
‘I’m OK, just a bit shaken up. Did you see what happened?’
‘Please, wait here,’ handsome stranger insists. ‘I have to get this file to someone in that building.’ He gestures towards the offices behind us with the fat file. ‘Just...don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes, I’ll explain everything then. Get your breath back, OK?’
I nod my head and watch him dash into the building behind me, my shoe still tucked under his arm which means I couldn’t leave if I wanted to – not that wearing only one shoe concerns me, but just one of these particular shoes is worth more than most of my other pairs.
Whatever happened to me, I am so lucky that I landed on my bum because I think it broke my fall. I’ll never complain about the size of it again, I promise.
I check my phone again and then my bag to make sure nothing is damaged – or even more damaged than it was before I fell. Everything seems to be OK, and despite feeling a bit achy and a lot embarrassed, I think I’m OK too. The only things that suffered are the coffees – the poor coffees! It breaks my heart watching cars driving over the empty cups in the middle of the road.
‘Right, are you OK?’ the gorgeous stranger asks when he returns. ‘I feel like such a dickhead. I was in a bit of a rush, I completely knocked you off your feet.’
Ah, so that’s what happened.
‘No harm done. I’m fine,’ I assure him, although part of me is thinking I should be a bit pissed off – but who could be mad at that silky black hair and those perfect teeth? To be honest, I just want to get another coffee (for medicinal purposes) and get to work.
‘I feel terrible. Can I replace your drinks? It’s the least I can do. I’m Tom by the way.’ He offers me his hand for the second time, this time for me to shake.
‘I’m Nicole, nice to meet you. I think,’ I reply as I shake his hand. He has a tight, manly grip and I’m certain I’m blushing right now.
‘Nice to meet you too, Nicole. Let’s get those drinks.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine, I—’
‘Please?’ Tom flashes a smile that I can’t bring myself to say no to and so I give in, but not before he gets down on one knee and delicately places my shoe back on my foot. If the smile didn’t have me saying yes, then the Cinderella moment sealed the deal.
Soon enough I’m in Starbucks, again, only this time it’s much busier and we’re forced to wait for our order. We chat for a few minutes and it turns out that Tom works for a firm of solicitors not far from where I work and, despite the fact that he practically assaulted me, and the fact we’ve only known each other for about twenty minutes, we’re getting on really well.
As soon as the drinks are ready, we walk back towards our offices. This is the second longest time it has ever taken me to walk the short journey from my flat to where I work. My record was set a couple of months ago when I spied a sale at one of my favourite shops, or a ‘dental emergency’ as I explained it to my colleagues, bursting through the doors several hours late with lots of suspicious-looking carrier bags.
‘This is me,’ I say as we arrive at the revolving doors that lead to my office. ‘I’m sure I can handle it from here.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ He smiles that smile again. ‘I know this must seem a bit weird considering the circumstances, but I’d really like to see you again. I’ve already swept you off your feet.’
That’s the kind of cheesiness that would normally make me sick all over a man’s shoes, but being so gorgeous, even a line as lame as that sounds utterly charming as it leaves his lips.
‘Erm, knocked me off my feet,’ I correct him, and he laughs.
‘I’ll give you my card, give me a call if you want to go for a drink sometime.’
After thanking him again, I take the card and say goodbye. As soon as I am in the building and out of Tom’s line of sight, I toss the card into the nearest bin, because there’s no way I’m going to call him. Yes, he’s good-looking, charming, funny and has a really good job, but that’s just not my type. He may be any normal/sane girl’s type, but I’ve never been that normal. Or sane.
Anyway, I’m late for work. Better get a move on.
Chapter Two (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
The Rebel
My name is Nicole Wilde, and I don’t live in the ‘real world’. Well, that’s what my Great-aunt Dorothy is always telling me. Maybe she’s right. I guess I am kind of lucky with the way things have worked out.
As tacky as it sounds, I have always wanted to be a celebrity. When I was a little girl, as shy as I was, I wanted to be an actress, a singer, a dancer or a musician, and I tried my hand at each one – it turns out I was crap at all of them. My singing voice wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t amazing either, acting gave me the giggles, trying to make my hands do different things at the same times just wouldn’t happen no matter which instrument I tried to learn and as for dancing, well that’s pretty much just exercise, and who wants to do that for a living?
Fast forward a few years to my mid-teens. I rebelled. Black nails and make-up, rainbow-coloured hair, fishnet tights and ‘fuck my life’ T-shirts – that was me. However, like any scary-on-the-outside, good-girl-on-the-inside teenage faux rebel, music was my life. I might not have been able to make it, but I could certainly surround myself with it. No more of the cheesy 90s pop that I loved growing up, instead I started listening to proper bands that played proper instruments.
I would go to the local venue a few times a week and check out unsigned bands from all over the country, stopping by the quiet little Yorkshire town where I grew up just to have another leg of their little self-funded tours.
I would watch the bands and then hang out chatting afterwards, and hitting it off with the musicians was just something that came easily to me. Maybe this was down to the fact that – as my Great-Aunt Dot put it – my grungy, punky outfits were ‘suggestive’ and gave off ‘the wrong impression’, but I think it probably had more to do with the fact that we shared a love of music.
Hanging around with these unknown musicians gave me a taste for the music industry (and a passion for band boys) so I started following big name bands around, doing anything and everything to meet them, have my photo taken with them and ask them to sign my CD/T-shirt/body part. This only increased my desire to be famous and to surround myself with famous people – it was a case of befriending the unsigned bands, sitting back and waiting to see if any of them ‘made it’. Of all the friends I made back in those days, some quit their bands, cut their hair and got real jobs but others stuck with it – one of the bands I know is actually getting pretty big at the moment which is very exciting.
By the time I was eighteen, I was tagging along on tours – low budget, of course – sleeping in the back of vans and converted old buses. I’m not even embarrassed to say it, but by the time I’d finished school, unlike most of my other friends, I didn’t want to get a job or a house or a husband – I just wanted to have fun. So, after my A-levels I took a gap year and became a professional hanger-on and I just loved it. I also ditched the scary teen rebel look, trading in my brightly coloured ’do for sexy blonde highlights, and that’s when I became a slave to fashion, rather than dressing like an actual sex slave.
Sadly, everyone has to go home sometime, and one day I arrived at my parents’ house to find my mum and dad waiting for me, armed with a question: what are you going to do with your life? The truth was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I decided to go to university – because, as bad as it sounds, that would buy me three more years of messing around. I wasn’t some ambitious teen, packing my bags for uni with big dreams of becoming an architect or an artist or an astronaut, so the selection process was a little random. I decided to do journalism, because it sounded glamorous and could potentially involve celebrities. It turned out to be the best decision I have ever made because during my third year I got to go to ByteBanter for my work experience. To this day I don’t fully understand what the heck they do – they’re some kind of techy news website – but I enjoyed my time there and I really clicked with the editor, Eric Tucker, or ET as he’s known around the office. When I turned up on my first day it was like being transported to the future – or teleported to the future, as ET corrected me when I said this out loud. Everything was chrome and black leather, there were all kinds of machines making lots of noise, lights flickering like crazy and the desks were just a mass of gadgets – I had entered geek world, and it was everything I thought it would be. The first thing I noticed was that there weren’t any female employees. I remember asking ET if any women worked there and he replied: ‘most of these guys haven’t ever spoken to a girl, let alone worked with one’.
They might not have realised it, but a lot of the guys working there were accidentally cool. They were rocking the geek-chic look – you know the one, braces, thick-framed glasses, bow ties – I’m fairly certain that if they walked into a branch of Topman, they would blend right in, not that any of them would ever go near Topman.
Most of them wouldn’t talk to me at first but some were friendly. They didn’t make me feel stupid for not understanding HTML or JavaScript (which, sadly, has nothing to do with coffee) and they could have easily put me in a corner sharpening pencils (I made a joke about this at the time, they don’t have pencils) but they didn’t. Instead they gave me things to write about like iPods and music download services and, unsurprisingly, I managed to write about my favourite thing: bands. To make a very long story very short, at the end of my time there ET was so impressed, and so happy that almost all of the office had at least spoken to a member of the opposite sex, that he offered me a job, starting as soon as I’d finished my degree. I didn’t think he meant it, but as soon as I graduated I gave him a call on the off-chance and, just like he said he would, he set me up with my own little department. Two rooms of their huge office were assigned to my project – a main office for my team and a little private office for me. The ByteBanter guys would build and maintain an online magazine for me, but I was in charge of everything else.
If the ByteBanter office was futuristic, the rooms they gave me to use were practically prehistoric. The decor reminded me of a film noir detective office – old wooden desks, proper filing cabinets, frosted glass on the doors and even a coat stand. Anything that wasn’t actually made of wood was a similar colour.
I managed to poach Jake – my favourite member of the ByteBanter team – to come and do the day-to-day techy stuff for me and recruited my best friend from uni, Emily, to help me with the writing and there you have it, that’s how I became editor of Starstruck, an online magazine.
Chapter Three (#ulink_ce326a41-13e0-50aa-8e40-f055c88e332e)
The Devil, The Succubus and The Rockstar
Pushing my way arse first through the ByteBanter double doors, I dodge my way through the desks to where my office is, saying my good mornings to the nerdy guys as I pass through – although I think that ship has sailed now.
I have a go at opening the Starstruck door with my forehead, with no luck, but thankfully someone at a nearby desk notices and helps me out.
‘I’m here, I’m here,’ I chant victoriously as I arrive with the new coffees intact.
‘Well, look what the cat dragged in!’ Emily teases.
‘I’m late, I know, but you wouldn’t believe what happened on the way over here,’ I begin to explain, handing out the drinks.
‘What could have possibly happened that would make the ten-minute walk from your flat to here take two hours? And is this a skinny latte?’ Vicky asks rather rudely, and yes, I am technically her boss.
I ignore her question about my lateness, but as for the latte – what is the right answer? I’m so not in the mood today. It took me two attempts to get her that damn coffee and if she doesn’t drink it she will end up wearing it.
‘No?’ I reply, although it sounds more like a question than an answer.
‘Excellent!’ She snatches it from me without the same thank-you that I received from Emily and Jake.
‘You know what they say, Nicole,’ Vicky persists, ‘the early bird catches the worm.’
‘Ah, but the second mouse gets the cheese,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, but it’s covered in dead mouse,’ she says, looking and sounding thoroughly disgusted that I’d suggest such a thing.
Vicky Mason is the newest member of the Starstruck team. She is an aspiring journalist with a BTEC in Photography, desperate to break into the world of music journalism. Emily met her at a gig she was reviewing and I guess Vicky just latched on to her. She didn’t have a job, and we didn’t have a proper photographer, so after a lot of persuasion from Em I agreed to take Vicky on. Oh, how I have come to regret that decision now; the girl is impossible to get along with. She’s bossy, she’s rude and she is so argumentative.
Emily gets on with her and Jake gets on with anyone, but Vicky and I just clash in every way imaginable.
She’s an averagely talented photographer – much better now that I’m constantly splashing out on new kit for her to use. Personally, I think she would be much more at home trying to trick drunk celebrities into flashing their underwear outside nightclubs so that she can snap some photos and sell them to the tabloids for a big chunk of cash.
I have lovingly dubbed her Succubus (a name I only use behind her back, obviously) because the first time she went to a gig with me and Emily, we ended up back at the hotel with the band and Vicky got in bed with the bassist while he was sleeping.
I tell them the story about my encounter with Tom, hoping they might think my fall had more to do with me being late than my hangover.
‘He gave you his business card?’ Jake chuckles. ‘Did you say his name was Patrick Bateman? You know, he liked blondes.’
‘Very funny,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Now hadn’t you better get back to playing The Sims or updating your MySpace profile or whatever it is you do on there when you’re pretending to work.’
I have a great friendship with Jake. He teases me about being a groupie, I tease him about a nerd. We are about as opposite as two people can be, but we get on like a house on fire.
‘Nic, can I see you in your office, please?’ Emily asks. She sounds serious, but her face isn’t giving anything away.
My first reaction is to panic – on the inside though, I’m not going to let Vicky enjoy my potential misery. I grab my caramel macchiato – I can’t hear bad news without caffeine in me – and make my way into my little office. I close the door behind us, just as Jake starts singing the chorus of Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ in an attempt to tease me. He’s spending way too much time around me if he’s learning the lyrics to songs like that, I almost feel sorry for him.
‘Right, hit me with it, get it over with,’ I babble. I’ve never been great at receiving bad news.
A smile spreads across my friend’s face.
‘It’s good news. I was going through the emails...’ Emily pauses for dramatic effect.
‘Spit it out, woman!’ I demand, unable to wait a second longer.
‘We’ve had an email from Plastic Rap’s manager, you’re interviewing them tonight!’ she tells me with an extra-loud squeal.
‘No way! We managed to blag an interview? How? I thought they were all booked up.’
‘They had some journo drop out at the last minute, there’s a slot going free. It’s after the show though, so late. Do I confirm?’
‘Erm, yeah! You’re coming with me, right?’
‘Can’t. It’s my mum’s birthday party tonight,’ she reminds me and I can see how disappointed she is. ‘He said in the email that he could supply us with photos, so you don’t even have to take Vicky if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I whisper with a cheeky smile on my face.
‘I am so jealous. You never know, one of the Plastic Rap boys might fall madly in love with you. You could get married and your groupie days would be over. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about getting up for work on a morning – I told you that you’d be late today,’ she teases.
‘Oi, who are you calling a groupie? And when did you tell me that I’d be late today?’
‘Last night...’ she prompts, and I cast my mind back. Em and I went to a gig last night and then partied with the bands until the early hours – let’s just say things got messy. She’s right though, I remember the taxi dropping me off, drunkenly fidgeting with my door key, thinking it was the funniest thing ever, and Emily yelling something out of the taxi window about how I’d be late for work as she was driven off. A guilty smile spreads across my face.
‘And don’t think I didn’t see you snogging the face off Troy Reeves, Miss Wilde,’ she adds.
Troy was on one of those terrible reality TV talent show things. He didn’t win, but when I interviewed him he told me that he was glad because he could make music without a super-strict recording contract holding him back – he also told me he wanted to sleep with me and we’ve been getting together whenever he’s in town ever since.
‘So how come you didn’t go back with him last night?’ Emily asks.
‘I’m a lady!’ I protest, trying to give off Kate Middleton vibes but actually sounding more like David Walliams in Little Britain.
Emily gives me a look.
‘He had to go,’ I admit. ‘They were travelling through the night.’
‘You’re so bad, Nicole.’
‘The devil made me do it, now get out of my office, bitch.’ I laugh, totally defeated.
‘Gosh, Troy Reeves last night, Prince Charming today – it’s true what they say about men being like buses, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, they’re dirty, anyone can ride them and they’re never there when you want one.’
Emily, a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, rolls her eyes at this.
Plastic Rap are one of the biggest bands around at the moment. They’re mainly aimed at the teen market, but loved by young girls and mums alike. Even a few boys admit to liking them these days. At the moment they are touring the UK, and when tickets went on sale all venues sold out within a couple of hours. I managed to score a place on the guest list months ago, but all their publicity time was booked up. As far as their music goes, they’re not really my cup of tea, but this interview will be good for hits.
‘Get some work done,’ Emily says, leaving me alone in my office and closing the door behind her. There are only a handful of reasons why my office door is ever closed. 1. When Vicky is driving me especially crazy. 2. When I am in on my own, and therefore scared something might ‘get me’. 3. When I actually need to do some work. Despite today being a three, I have Googled Plastic Rap and now I’m casually clicking my way through their photos and mentally placing them in order of hotness. This takes up about ten minutes that I don’t have and I manage to burn another five flicking through the photos from last night on my phone. It certainly was a wild one.
Now officially in the p.m., I click open my emails. The first one I open is from Dylan King. Subject: Escort girl.
I quickly scan through the email which informs me Dylan is ‘sixty-seven percent certain’ he didn’t pay some girl for sex, although he is ‘eighty-five percent certain’ he did ‘bang her’. The percentages make me laugh but somehow I don’t think they were meant to.
Dylan is a mega-star, so stories are forever popping up in the press about him sleeping with some girl – and most of the time he has slept with them, in fact, I’m ninety-nine per cent certain.
As well as being a super-famous rockstar, he is also my best friend. I met him on my gap year when I won a competition to meet his band, The Burnouts. Back then the bands I hung around with were small-time, so it was pretty cool to meet one of the most famous bands in the country and get to hang out backstage.
I remember their manager came out to get me and as we were walking backstage he said: ‘They’re going to love you, darling.’ Back then I wasn’t the expert that I am now when it comes to bands, in particular the inner (and outer) workings of your typical band member, so I weakly asked him what he meant. ‘Blonde hair, big tits. You’re just Dylan’s type, you want to watch yourself with him,’ he warned me, making me even more nervous than I already was.
When I was shown into the backstage room, it was Mikey King, Dylan’s younger brother who is also in the band, who I was introduced to first and he was lovely. Dylan was always the one I’d had the crush on, but Mikey was just so down-to-earth and charming. It’s no secret that Mikey is the real talent in The Burnouts, he’s the guitarist and he writes most of the music, whereas Dylan is the egotistical front-man with the pretty face and the shocking reputation. After I’d chatted to Mikey for a while, Dylan came in and he was everything people had warned me about. His ego was in full swing and I could tell he was going out of his way to try and impress me – he even played me an exclusive clip of their next single. Until that moment, everything I had known about bands I had loved, but being around this mega-famous arsehole was really starting to get on my nerves, so when he played me their new song, despite it being amazing, I told him it was crap – because that ought to bring him down a peg or two. Of course I instantly regretted saying it, but after a few seconds of straight-faced silence he burst out laughing.
‘I think you’re the only person in the world brave enough to say something like that to me,’ he chuckled and apparently the kind of person who will tell you your music is crap is exactly the kind of person you want to have in your life if you’re a musician and we became pretty much inseparable. We’ve been best friends ever since – although nothing more, I hasten to add. This works well for both of us professionally because if I am having a slow week with news he will give me an interview, and he can always rely on me to give him a bit of good press when everyone is reporting the negative stuff – like him ‘banging’ a female escort, for example.
With me living in Leeds and him all the way down in London, we don’t see each other as much as we’d like, but we talk almost every day and we always have a blast when he is on tour.
My mind darts back to the ‘real world’. Sitting at my desk and staring at my computer, I realise that I’m not going to be able to concentrate today, I’m just too excited. I go through the rest of my emails, clicking my way through the masses of press releases we receive every day. There are a few good ones but nothing too exciting, I’ll do them later.
One exciting email I have received is from a tour manager, asking to me to confirm that I will be joining a band on their tour. These guys are also my good friends; I used to tour with them when no one knew who they were, and now they’re embarking on their first headlining UK tour as a signed band, which is pretty exciting. I send a quick message (something which feels weirdly formal considering they’re my buddies) confirming that I will still be joining them on the road and then crack on with my work.
After four hours of replying to messages and writing items for the website, I am more than ready to go home. In what little time I have, I’m going to pull out all the stops for tonight. I only wish I had time to pick up something new to wear.
‘Don’t mind if I get off a bit earlier, do you, team? Big night tonight,’ I say, making my way towards the door.
‘Last one in, first one out,’ Jake jokes. ‘Lucky for some.’
‘Of course we don’t mind. If you do pull one of them, be sure to text me,’ Emily says excitedly. I think she may be even more excited than I am.
‘I don’t think so,’ I call back as I make my escape. It’s not that they are a bad-looking band, but my priority is the interview and I’m certainly not going to mess this up by getting my goals confused.
Chapter Four (#ulink_c47d6bae-fa0f-5eff-a166-f73b29583d4c)
The Secret
I feel so old right now, and I’m only twenty-five. I’m at the Plastic Rap gig and, apart from a handful of parents and their young kids, I am surrounded by excited teenagers, most of them female. Unsurprisingly I haven’t bumped into anyone I know, so I have been entertaining myself. I’ve knocked back a few drinks and messed around on my phone quite a lot. It’s very important to keep the good people of Twitter and Facebook up to date on what I’m doing – not to show off, I promise.
Plastic Rap are currently playing their last song and for the millionth time since I got here I am checking my bag for my Dictaphone. Absolutely nothing can go wrong tonight.
Looking up at them on stage, I have to admit that I can see exactly what the thousands of screaming girls see in them. They’re good-looking in a goody-goody pop kind of way, not a tattoo or piercing in sight, which is something I actually quite like; it’s not that often you find a musician without one or the other these days.
When the gig is finally over, I make my way to the hotel next door where our interview is taking place. Before I know it, I am plonked down in front of the band, who are eagerly awaiting my questions.
All five of them are so chatty, they’ve got bags of character and they’re definitely saying all the right things.
Sometimes the really famous ones are rude or awkward and I hate it when there’s a particular subject I’m not allowed to ask about, but that’s not the case with these guys.
I’ve asked all the music-related questions that we’re expected to ask, so it’s time to get down to the juicy stuff.
‘So, are you boys allowed girlfriends? A lot of bands with large teenage fan-bases are told to keep their girlfriends a secret.’
Sam (the hottest one in my opinion) is straight in there with an answer.
‘Yes, we’re allowed girlfriends and we all have a girlfriend at the moment. Our fans are the most loyal fans in the world, they certainly don’t mind us having them. It’s all about the music.’
Fantastic answer, although I have to disagree. It’s partly about the music, but their fans are genuinely in love with them. Hearts will break when they read this, that’s for sure.
Eventually we wrap up the interview. I pose for a few photos with the band and I’m not going to lie, these are for Facebook. I’m still a band lover at the end of the day.
Sam moves to stand next to me and slides an arm around my waist as we continue to pose for the camera.
‘We’re having a bit of a party if you’d like to stick around,’ he says between smiles. Before I have chance to reply, in walks the band’s tour manager with a group of ten young-looking fans. They’re maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, so I assume they’re here for a meet and greet before the party starts. For someone who has been hanging around bands for so long, that’s a pretty naive assumption it turns out. As if to remind me exactly how these things go, Carl the bassist walks straight up to one of the fans and sticks his tongue down her throat. Maybe it’s his girlfriend? Sure she looks a bit young, but who am I to jump to conclusions? Then again, if it was his girlfriend he probably wouldn’t be kissing the next girl in the line right now. Or the one after that.
Now I really do feel old. When I was sixteen I certainly wasn’t hanging around in hotels with taken men.
‘Thanks for the offer, but some of us have got work in the morning.’ I try to sound friendly, jokey, anything but shocked and appalled.
‘I’ll give you my number, yeah?’ He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. ‘We’re back here again in a few weeks, we’ll have to meet up, babe.’
This is the second phone number I have been given today that I have no intention of calling – unless we ever need another interview, of course.
As I gather my things and walk towards the door, I take one final look back at the band, just as they are working out which band member gets which girls. Ten girls – that’s two each. It reminds me of when we used to pick teams during PE at school. I bet a couple of those girls still have to do PE, how creepy is that?
The band’s chubby, bald tour manager stops me on the way out to ask a few questions about the magazine so I answer and politely thank him for his time. As I go for the door, he puts his arm up like a barrier blocking an exit.
‘These girls are all over sixteen, so don’t go putting this in your magazine,’ he warns me – protesting a little too much if you ask me.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I reply bluntly, waiting for him to move so I can pass him. Eventually he does, but not without trying to intimidate me a little. I can’t wait to tell Emily about this, in fact I’m actually dialling her number before I’ve even left the building. It doesn’t take me long to relay the night’s events to her as I walk home.
‘I cannot believe it!’ she squeals.
‘I know, right? No wonder their fans don’t mind them having girlfriends, it really, really doesn’t matter.’
‘Well yeah, that is shocking, but I can’t believe you didn’t stay. You were in there, Nic!’
‘No way! You’d have stayed? Those girls were the same age as your little sister. God, I felt like a prudish old woman.’
‘It would have been quite the scoop for the magazine though, wouldn’t it?’ she says cannily, but I know she doesn’t really mean it. She’s right, but not only did I promise their tour manager that I wouldn’t blab, I don’t really want to be pissing off a band that I will probably want to interview again in the future. They may not be very nice guys, but they pull the hits and that’s what I need.
‘We need to keep our heads down, Em. Trying to ruin the reputation of a huge band like Plastic Rap would probably just get us sued. Right, I’m at my door. I trust we’ll be keeping this little discovery between us?’
‘Say no more. See you in the morning and try not to be late, yeah?’
Cheeky bitch. Then again, I am always late.
Chapter Five (#ulink_1c33fda5-3003-5b36-91d4-47783ae91d97)
The Indecent Proposal
It’s good to be home, and I’m so glad I escaped the teeny orgy as I much prefer my own bed, and I don’t get on that well with kids. The kettle goes on and so does my laptop because, as soon as I get some caffeine in my system, I’m going to make a start transcribing tonight’s interview. I’m very much a night person which is proving really inconvenient because people expect me to wake up in the a.m..
Kicking off my shoes and abandoning my gig outfit in the middle of my living room, I wander around in my underwear until I eventually find my dressing gown which, for some reason, is plonked on top of the cooker. It doesn’t really matter because my cooker is super-clean – not because I am a domestic goddess but because I never, ever use it. Living in the city centre, there is a restaurant or a takeaway everywhere you look – who needs to know how to cook these days?
My butt finally hits the sofa at 1 a.m. I know I’ve got to be up in seven hours (five and a half if I want to wash my hair, which I probably should because I have post-gig frizz going on), so maybe I won’t be typing up the interview tonight after all.
I’m just about to shut down when a message from Luke Fox pops up on Skype. Just seeing his name makes me go all weird and, at twenty-five years of age, I still feel like a lovesick schoolgirl whenever I see him.
Luke is, you’ve guessed it, in a band and I have had a crush on him pretty much since the day we met. Unfortunately he is a bit of a tart, so despite our flirty banter I have mostly just stood back and watched him sleep with anything female that crossed his path.
It was Luke’s band, Two For The Road, that I used to tour with in my teens and now they’re a proper signed band in the middle of their first headlining UK tour – this is the band that I’ll be doing a few tour dates with later this week. I’m making out like it’s a magazine feature – and it will be going in the mag – but, to be honest, I have been on every tour with these guys since we met, I’m not about to stop now they’ve hit the big time. It’s amazing how things have changed. I used to sleep in the back of their van, now they’re being driven around in a huge tour bus.
Touring can really take its toll on your body. I’ve developed tinnitus from all the loud music (it turns out your ears need protection too, something I learned a little too late) and tendon damage from a particularly high pair of heels that I wore for too many days in a row, and while thankfully I’ve managed to protect myself from the cocktail of sexually transmitted diseases that I know several of my band friends have dipped their straws into, my priority has always been to protect my heart – no, I’m not talking about exercising on a regular basis and taking aspirin, I’m talking about not getting too involved with the boys. With Luke, this has always been a struggle.
It would be the biggest understatement of the century to say that I have a slight crush on him – I am crazy for him. I haven’t wanted to be anybody’s girlfriend since Robbie Williams ripped off his clothes (and then his skin) in the ‘Rock DJ’ music video back in 2000, but I could quite easily believe in monogamy for this man – something which troubles me because I’m not a commitment kind of girl and he certainly isn’t a commitment kind of boy.
He’s tall without being lanky, his dark hair is effortlessly perfect with his fringe falling over his gorgeous brown eyes and he always seems to smells so nice, even when he’s all sweaty after a show – see what I mean, I sound like a fifteen-year-old girl. The bottom line is that he is gorgeous, but I’m not the only one who thinks so. He has an even bigger female following since hitting the big time and I can’t compete with semi-naked, drunk chicks that operate as a team.
Luke: Nicole?
As the message pops up on my screen, the butterflies in my stomach start fluttering like crazy, it’s ridiculous. When we see each other at gigs, we get on so well and we flirt constantly but that’s just the way he is. He definitely doesn’t know about my little crush on him. It would be stupid of me to interpret his flirting as real feelings because he’s such a ladies’ man and a total charmer. He’s the kind of guy your mother would warn you about and your father would want to kill – actually, he could probably charm your mum too.
After what feels like several minutes of panicky excitement, I manage to compose myself enough to type a reply. He tells me that he is currently sat in a hotel room, all alone and bored out of his mind. After we get past the hello-how-are-you stuff, things start to get interesting.
Luke: No party tonight. This is not what I signed up for.
Nicole: Well I’ll be with you in a few days, and I’ll make sure we have a messy one.
Luke: Looking forward to it. Are you seeing anyone at the moment?
Am I seeing anyone at the moment? That’s a laugh. The truth is that it’s been years since I had an actual boyfriend. It’s not that I’m lacking male attention, far from it, but my type happens to be musicians.
When you’re on the road, all relationships are short, even friendships. You take ‘relationships’ where you can find them and they require about as much commitment as a pet rock. Having a guy ask you to be his girlfriend in the ‘real world’ is the equivalent of a band boy actually remembering your surname. But that’s the way I like it. The sad truth is that I’d rather have two nights with a rockstar than two years with your average bloke.
The fact that Luke is even enquiring about my love life is enough to make my heart race.
Nicole: Nope. Are you?
Luke: No, I’m single too.
I knew that. Luke totally subscribes to the musician way of life and a girlfriend would only cramp his style. Before I have chance to worry about what to say in response, Luke sends me another message.
Luke: Can I ask you something?
Nicole: Sure.
I’m trying to sound cool, like I’m not really bothered what he says next – I am though. This is so high school, I cannot believe that I am still playing these games.
Luke: You know that I fancy you, don’t you?
If I’m being honest, I’m waiting for the punch-line.
My first guess is that it isn’t Luke at all. It could be Eddie, the TFTR front-man, messing with me. Or maybe it is Luke, but he’s drunk. Then again, if he’s drunk how come his typing is so accurate? And Eddie being sober, or alone, at this time of night after a gig is about as probable as me using my cooker for something other than storage.
Nicole: You fancy everyone, ha-ha!
Luke: No, I really fancy you.
If this isn’t a joke then I am gobsmacked. I’ll have to reply with something or he’ll think he’s scared me away. Not only is this guy my crush, but he’s a proper celebrity these days. He might not be a super-star like Dylan, and TFTR aren’t as big as Plastic Rap yet, but he’s big enough to have an album in the impressive end of the Top Forty at the moment.
Nicole: Is this really you?
Better to ask than to make a total tit of myself and have the rest of the band tease me about it for the rest of time.
Luke: Of course it’s me. You don’t believe me?
Nicole: Are you drunk?
Luke: Yes, but that’s not why I’m telling you. I can’t get you out of my head, especially when I’m alone on the bus ;-).
He’s taking a bit of a risk with our friendship here, but he is a musician. He oozes confidence and probably thinks every girl in the world finds him attractive – then again, they probably do. Luke can easily get away with hitting on his female friends and using tacky emoticons in his messages.
Luke: Am I making things awkward? I’m sorry.
Nicole: You’re not making thinks awkward, don’t worry.
Luke: We flirt all the time, why do you seem so surprised?
Nicole: Again, because you flirt with everyone!
Luke: Wait until I see you, we’ll talk in person and then you’ll know that I mean what I say.
I agree before changing the subject from Luke’s declaration of lust and we carry on chatting for a while. Before I know it, it’s nearly 3 a.m., which means I should definitely be in my bed by now. I don’t want to go, but I don’t want to be late for work again either. I am both relieved and devastated when Luke says that he had better get some sleep, so we finish the conversation by saying that we’ll see each other on tour in a couple of days.
Finally climbing in my bed, I rest my head on the pillow and try to get some much-needed sleep. My conversation with Luke is replaying in my head and I can’t help but wonder how things are going to play out when I see him.
I’m so going to be late for work in the morning.
Chapter Six (#ulink_05dcb0fa-5e69-54bf-af53-2f356457b694)
The Fan-bang
Despite the exciting events last night, not only am I at work on time but I am also the first one to arrive.
I am in a fantastic mood today and my work is reaping the benefits. In fact, I am so busy flying through the emails that I don’t even hear Jake arrive. I’m surprised I couldn’t smell the coffee as he was coming up in the lift.
He makes me jump by dropping a copy of the Daily Scoop newspaper on the desk in front of me. Plastic Rap are on the cover accompanied by the headline: ‘We’re having a fan-bang’. Not only am I amazed by the speed these tabloids operate at, but I’d give anything to have been the person who came up with that pun.
‘Oh my God...’
‘I take it you left before this went on?’ Jake enquires.
‘I did. Minutes before, actually.’
‘You’re probably too old for them,’ he jokes.
‘Oi, you! Sam gave me his number if you must know.’
‘For what exactly? In case he needs a babysitter?’
Jake is so funny. He’s not really that into the kind of music we write about, but he is so good at his job and he keeps us all in stitches while we’re working.
I take a long, unladylike swig of my coffee and grab the paper to have a proper read.
It doesn’t say who their source is, but they must have been at the hotel last night because they saw exactly what I saw. I can’t believe this has made the front page.
I read the article out loud as Emily and Vicky arrive together.
‘Plastic Rap, the squeaky-clean teen sensation, are proving to be just as artificial as their name. There has never been any scandal in the press about band members Sam, Carl, Mike, John and Simon, all aged between twenty and twenty-two...until now, that is.’ Looking up to make sure that I have Emily and Vicky’s attention, I carry on reading: ‘At a gig in Leeds last night, the band members sent one of their people out into the crowd to bring them back a couple of fans each. Our spy estimated the age of the fans to be ‘about fifteen or sixteen’. The band, who market themselves as being teen-friendly, should know better – these girls probably had school in the morning.’
I’ve read enough. I wonder who leaked the story to the press – it certainly wasn’t me, I was far too preoccupied last night, but I don’t remember seeing anyone else in the room. It must have been one of the fans, maybe one of them realised how wrong it was and decided to tell the press. Well, good for her – whoever she was – and she didn’t even give her name so she’s clearly not just after the fame. Poor Em has a concerned look on her face, I didn’t realise she was so appalled by the story when I told her about it last night.
‘Nicole, I’m going to go pick the new camera up. I’ve had a message to say that it’s ready,’ Jake informs me, before turning to Vicky and asking her if she wants to go with him – it is for her after all. Vicky jumps out of her chair and heads to the door. She doesn’t even say goodbye to us, the girl is that rude. I’m just glad to get her out of the way so that I can talk to Emily properly about the headline and about Luke.
‘I saw that paper on the way to work this morning, I thought maybe you’d tipped them off,’ she says as soon as we’re alone.
‘Come on, Emily. You know me better than that. As if I’d give trash like the Scoopmy story. Anyway, forget that, I have something far more interesting to tell you.’
I tell her everything about my conversation with Luke. She already knows how much I fancy him, but she doesn’t seem that pleased for me.
‘Oh,’ is her response.
‘Oh?’
‘Well, he’s not the kind of guy you really want to be with is he, Nic? Can you imagine being married to someone like that?’
‘Bloody hell, Em! I’m not planning on marrying the guy!’
‘Well what about those rumours that he is always off his face on drugs since the band hit the big time?’ she quizzes me.
‘Who knows if there’s any truth in that? And like it matters. Like I said, we’re hardly planning our wedding.’
I’m slightly annoyed that I’m having to justify myself to her, her love life is just as chaotic as mine, if not more so. I may go for the band boys, but Em goes for the bad eggs out there in the ‘real world’. Anyway, I’ve never seen any of the boys touch anything other than a bit of weed now and then on the bus (not that I approve) – certainly not the hard stuff like you read in the gossip columns. The press are just trying to trash the hottest new band on the scene, simply because they can.
‘In that case I’m very happy for you,’ Emily says with a smile that I’m not entirely convinced is genuine.
‘Yeah, well don’t go hat shopping just yet, will you?’ I joke, but things are suddenly a bit awkward.
I’m touched by her concern but, like I said, I’m not planning on marrying him, and she doesn’t usually care about the moral character of the band boys I ‘get involved’ with. He’s my big crush, can’t I just enjoy this moment?
‘I’ve got Vicky living with me, as of last night,’ Emily blurts out.
Now I’m shocked. ‘Why?’
‘She had a huge fall-out with her mum and she turned up at my mum’s party with her bags – what was I supposed to do?’
I don’t know what expression is currently occupying my face, but it must be bad because Emily reacts to it straight away.
‘I know you’re not keen on her, but she’s a nice girl and it’s only temporary.’
‘You’re too nice, Emily Adams. Don’t let her take advantage.’
Our conversation is cut short by my mobile ringing. It’s Dylan King so I take it in my office.
‘Hello, rockstar, how are you?’
‘Fucked,’ he replies.
‘What’s the matter?’ I do worry about him, he’s such a good friend to me and he gets such a hard time from the press for getting drunk and hooking up with girls. In a weird way I’m quite proud to be female and his friend, rather than just another one of his conquests. He has a hard time trusting girls, so it’s nice to be so special to him.
‘To summarise,’ he starts, sounding more serious than I have ever heard him sound in his life, ‘I’ve knocked up some girl, about seven months ago apparently. She’s having twins – fucking twins, Nicole. It’s going to come out sooner or later, she’s saying she’ll go to the press. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘First of all, calm down. I don’t want to be rude, but are you certain it was you who...knocked her up?’ I ask, using his words. ‘You’ve been, erm, seeing a few girls this past year and not the most committed kind...’ I trail off, hoping he’ll catch my drift. My point is that he’s shagged a lot of random girls. Random girls who have probably shagged a lot of random guys too.
‘The timing is right,’ he says before a long pause. ‘And there’s a video.’
‘A video? Bloody hell, Dylan, when those kids ask you where they came from, you’re going to be able to give them one hell of an answer.’
He laughs, but he sound worried sick. I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. I love Dylan to bits, but he really puts it about and he drinks a lot, which we all know is a recipe for disaster. I think he’s been really lucky to not have this happen on a weekly basis. Even so, I feel sorry for him.
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘I’ve got a meeting with a guy this afternoon, some publicity crisis specialist who’s going to work it all out for me, I’ve just got to keep quiet about it until then.’
‘Good luck, babe. Try not to worry, OK?’ I know it’s easier said than done, but what do you say to a friend who has accidentally knocked up a girl he hardly knows? And with a video souvenir too. Hallmark certainly don’t make a card for it.
All around me glamorous, rich and famous folks’ lives are going down the pan and at the same time mine is getting better and better. It’s true what they say, money and fame don’t make you happy. When I think about the scandal with Plastic Rap and their young fans, and now Dylan and his pregnant one-night stand, it makes me really glad that I’m not famous. I do stupid things all the time, but luckily no one cares enough for a newspaper to want to write about it.
I try to put myself in Dylan’s shoes, but I just cannot imagine how it would feel to have everyone knowing every little detail about you, for your parents to see the details of your sex life on the front page of a newspaper along with the rest of the world – your dentist, the people you went to school with, the guy who serves you in Starbucks. Some of the things I’ve read about Dylan, true or otherwise, have been so embarrassing, I just can’t imagine the entire country knowing the dirty little details of my life and me feeling comfortable carrying on as if nothing were any different. That’s why I’m glad I became a journalist – no one cares what we do.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_1474ae98-60a5-5f0d-9874-307ad37a5a47)
The Name’s Wilde, Nicole Wilde
I was about fourteen when I went to see my first proper concert and it was mesmerising. I think that’s when my love of the music biz started – I was just so fascinated by all of it.
I remember not long after that, I was hanging around outside the arena in Sheffield with my friends. We would turn up at 10 a.m. and wait for the bands to arrive, just hoping to catch a glimpse. That time in particular we were standing at the temporary metal fence in the huge, empty car park when the bus pulled in. I just stared in amazement as it drove past us. It seemed huge – like the band were travelling around in a hotel on wheels. It’s funny, I’ve been on so many since then that these days they all seem so small to me – tour buses that is, not bands.
Peeping through the fence, I watched them unload the bus. After the roadies had done all the heavy lifting, the doors would open and out strolled the important-looking people like managers and publicists. Then my favourite bit, the band would step off the bus, usually surrounded by girlfriends and friends. I wanted to be one of those people, following them around like a puppy, being the envy of every girl standing around in the car park. Well look at me now, I’m living the dream. Well, almost. Let’s just say things aren’t exactly the way I imagined them to be. I thought it was going to be pure glamour, but the reality of it is rather different. OK, so the five-star hotels are pretty glam, but even the most beautiful hotel room can seem like a shithole when you add a gang of lads who invite thirty of their closest friends for an impromptu party. Without entertainment planned, people will make their own fun and that is when things get messy. There’s nothing glamorous about a luxury bath when it’s nearly full to the top with beer, vomit, piss, fag ends and anything else that happens to be within reach.
I like to think I’m rock and roll, but I remember seeing a huge flat-screen TV taken down off the wall and being promptly thrown off the balcony and into the river that our formerly beautiful room overlooked. The band thought this was hilarious – it was no skin off their noses because their record label would foot the bill – but I’d kill to have a TV like that at my place, it was such a waste.
When I find myself alone in a hotel room I’ll order room service, throw on a fluffy dressing gown and see what the movie channels have to offer. The only things I have ever thrown off a balcony, well technically spat off a balcony, were orange Revels – abominable.
Don’t get me wrong though, I am a party animal. Put me in a hotel room with a bunch of drunk band boys and a few friends and things will always get messy. I’ve thrown up in a bath or two in my time, but that will not be happening on this tour, I’m not going to be able to seduce Luke with vomit.
At the moment I am hurriedly packing my bags so that I don’t miss my train to Manchester. That’s where I’ll be meeting up with Luke’s band, Two For The Road, and joining them on the last week of their tour.
Packing for tour requires two bags. I have a small bag to take to gigs with me – big enough for my phone, purse, camera and make-up – and a huge bag that could rival a suitcase for space. Inside this bag I have successfully crammed enough items of clothing to at least create the illusion that I am wearing a different outfit every day of the tour, my vital grooming items like my hairbrush and the super-important things like my phone charger. I lift it up before I squash in the last few items, just to see if it’s too heavy to carry and it almost certainly is, but I’ll manage.
As I frantically cram the last few things into the two bags, I mentally tick them off my list of things to take with me. Of course, the problem with a mental list is that you have to actually remember the things on it and you can guarantee I will always forget something.
Guess what? I’m running really late. It’s nearly 7 p.m. by the time I am making the short journey from my flat to the train station. I probably should have checked the train times, but I know there is one every half an hour so it should be fine. I really am so disorganised, but I think I secretly enjoy the drama. A few taps on my phone would tell me what time the train is due and what time it arrives in Manchester, but that would be way too easy, and if I start messing around with my phone then I’ll definitely miss my train.
After buying my ticket I check the departures board and learn that not only is my train due to depart in three minutes, but that it is departing from platform sixteen. Just brilliant.
I knew that I’d be running late, so I decided to get ready for the gig before I left home. The downside of this is that I’m freezing in my little dress but on the plus side it will save me loads of time when I get there, and at least I’m wearing my cosy Ugg boots. My pretty shoes are in my bag, I’ll make the swap when I get there.
Running down the steps to platform sixteen I hear the all-too-familiar whistle, the one that means the train doors are about to close and I’m about to miss my train. Before I know what I’m doing, I am diving through the closing doors, landing upright and still holding my things as the doors shut behind me. The train is absolutely packed and all the people standing in the doorway cheer and applaud my James Bond-style manoeuvre. That is probably the most energetic thing I have done in a long time, so I smile and curtsy for my audience before composing myself and trying to find my phone. This is one of those moments in life that is totally Twitter-worthy, in fact I think Twitter was designed with moments like this in mind.
Impressed with myself, I wonder how I managed to move so gracefully with my big bag and, of course, it is then that I realise I have left my big bag at home. This means that I have no clean clothes, no hairbrush and, worst of all, no pretty shoes. Shit. It’s too late to do anything about it now, I’ll just have to try and manage. I’ve survived on low-budget tours, sleeping in the back of dirty old vans and trying to make my face of make-up last for more than one day – I’ll be fine. I’m touring with Two For The Road, they have a big, glamorous tour bus and we’ll be staying in a few hotels. I guess I’ll have to buy some new clothes, but that is hardly an idea I am against.
About an hour later, the train pulls into Manchester Piccadilly station and I hop off far less gracefully than I got on. My friend, Gemma, is stood waiting for me. She’s a huge Two For The Road fan and I remember exactly what it’s like to be a fan, desperate to meet the band, so I told her that if she wanted to come along I would introduce her.
‘Are you excited about tonight?’ I ask.
‘I am so, so nervous. I don’t know how you keep your cool being friends with all these bands! Just promise to introduce me to Eddie.’
She does look nervous, bless her. I remember when I was nervous.
Eddie is the lead singer of TFTR and like every front-man ever, he is gorgeous, charming and as shallow as a puddle.
I resist telling Gemma about Luke – it’s not that I don’t trust her, I’m just worried. What if he acts like we never had that conversation? What if he was just drunk? I am not going to make a fool of myself tonight, although I’m not sure how easy that is going to be as I do plan on getting a little bit drunk.
Finally outside the venue, a big, scary-looking doorman ticks our names off the guest list. I can hear the music from out here, it’s Two For The Road. I told you that I was going to be very late.
Our first stop is the bar and it’s only as we’re ordering our drinks that I realise I am probably just as nervous as Gemma is tonight. It has been such a long time since I felt nervous about meeting a band, and I know these guys so well, but this Luke stuff is having a strange effect on me. I’ve always kept my crush on him under wraps, but now that he might actually fancy me back, everything is different. Oh God, I’m sounding like a schoolgirl again.
Armed with our drinks, we make our way towards the stage where the show is already in full swing. Eddie, the singer, is upfront and smack bang in the middle. He’s very typically good-looking (think Alex Pettyfer, but brunette) and he really knows how to work the crowd. The only time he isn’t surrounded by a crowd of girls is when he’s on stage. He has his shirt fully unbuttoned, like he’s in Whitesnake (circa 1980s) or something, and a guitar hanging off his body which I don’t think I have ever seen him play, that’s Ben’s job. Ben is the lead guitarist, but he’s probably the shyest member of the band. I’m not sure how old he is, but he can’t be more than twenty. He’s a new addition to TFTR (after their original guitarist walked) and hasn’t quite acquired the same level of cockiness as the rest of them, but given time I’m sure he will. Then we have the bassist, Mark. Mark is probably the one I get on with the least because he’s taken that cheeky cockiness that makes Eddie and Luke so likeable and mutated it into full-blown arrogance. Even before they were famous, you could tell he thought he was the shit. He’s never been anything but nice to me though, so I can’t complain, but there is something very unattractive about a man who thinks that he is God’s gift to women. In reality he’s a bit chubbier than the rest of the guys, his short blonde hair always looks like it needs a good wash and I wish he would have a shave – I am not a big fan of beards at the best of times, but his definitely has to go. As I’m staring at him, I catch his eye and he gives me a wink, so I give him a smile in return. Then I look at Luke, he’s sitting behind the drums with his shirt off, sweat literally dripping off him as he bangs away on his kit with real enthusiasm. I get that feeling again, that pang of something in my chest. I think my heart just skipped a beat – how lame is that?
We’ve managed to push our way to the front of the crowd – at Gemma’s request, I’d be happier blending into the background and pretending I’m important. As their song comes to an end, Eddie chats to his audience. I look over at Luke who is downing a bottle of water and the moment he stops drinking, he spots me. Standing up behind his drum kit and grabbing his microphone off the stand, he interrupts Eddie.
‘Nicole Wilde, I see you! Guys, we’ve got a very special lady in tonight, huge shout-out to Nicole from Starstruck. She’s touring with us and we want her to write nice things, so if you see her at the bar then buy her a drink!’ And with that, he returns the mic to its rightful place and sits back down behind his drums.
‘This one is for you, Nicole!’ Eddie shouts as he bursts into their next song. I am both smug and embarrassed in equal measure. Shout-outs are great, but embarrassing, and because it was from Luke I can feel my cheeks flushing. I’m hoping people will assume it’s because it’s warm in here.
The guys put on one hell of a show and, before I know it, they’re about to play their final song of the night.
‘So, this is our last song, guys.’ Eddie stops talking to swig his beer, his audience will wait. ‘Thank you so much for coming. We’re going to party here for a while afterwards so come and say hello, and then we’re going to a club. Where’s cool in Manchester?’ he asks in the faux-American twang he picked up somewhere along the way – I’m not sure where, he’s a Londoner. His question is met by a series of shouted-out suggestions from the happy crowd, none of which are audible.
After they play their final song and go off stage, the nerves really hit me. I’m going to have to have an actual conversation with Luke, and I can’t hide behind a Skype window while I think of cool and clever responses. I am so worried he’ll bring up the other night, but I’m even more worried that he won’t mention it at all.
After a quick trip to the bar for more drinks, I am chatting with Gemma when Eddie and Mark come over to say hello. Like the good friend that I am, the first thing I do is introduce Gemma to them, and if she is nervous then she isn’t letting it show because she is so cool. As the four of us chat, I feel two hands on my waist and my heart jumps into my mouth because I know who it is. I spin around in his gentle grip to see a slightly sweaty and unfortunately fully clothed Luke Fox. He pulls me closer for a hug and plants a kiss on my cheek.
‘Well hello, Miss Wilde,’ he says, with the usual slightly flirtatious tone to his voice.
‘Hello, Mr Fox,’ I reply – how very smooth of me.
Oh shit, is this awkward? Someone needs to say something.
‘You guys were awesome tonight,’ I tell him as the rest of the gang go back to their conversation.
‘Thank you,’ he says before pulling me close and whispering softly into my ear. ‘I think you and I need a conversation tonight, don’t you, Nicole?’
In my flat boots (which do not go with my dress at all) I have to lift myself up onto my tiptoes to whisper back to him, ‘That all depends on what you want to talk about, Luke.’ Now it’s my turn to sound flirtatious. Before he can reply, I am dragged back to the other conversation by the band’s tour manager who has now joined us. I was far too wrapped up in Luke to notice. Mick the tour manager hands me my laminated Access All Areas pass so that I can get in and out of venues without needing to be on the guest list or with a band member.
As we’re all stood chatting, I take the opportunity to think over what just happened with Luke. ‘We need a conversation’ doesn’t really mean anything, does it? No matter how flirty he was acting when he said it. I am snapped out of my thoughts by Eddie, who asks me something about the magazine. As I am answering, I feel Luke’s hand moving slowly down my back before resting softly on my bum. I’m trying to give Eddie an answer, but I feel like everyone can see it on my face, and I’m sure my cheeks are flushing again. My face cheeks that is.
Just as I start to relax, the band are called away to do some photos. Time for some more Dutch courage.
Gemma and I knock back a few more drinks as we watch the band chat to fans, pose for photographs and sign autographs.
Eddie is surrounded by girls, as always, and Luke and Mark have a fairly big crowd around them too, but Ben is sat to the side texting away on his mobile, probably to his girlfriend. It must be strange for him to go from being an unknown guitarist to being in a band like TFTR. I think he’s handled himself really well though. It’s great that he’s still with his girlfriend, especially considering the attitude towards women that the rest of the band seem to share. Having said that, Eddie has had several girlfriends, it’s just that unfortunately they have all been other people’s girlfriends.
I see Luke walking over, so I jump up from my stool, but the alcohol doesn’t seem to want me to and I stumble straight into him. He catches me and asks Gemma how many I’ve had.
‘Enough,’ I interrupt and I’m pretty sure I just winked.
‘We’re going to some club down the road, are you ready to go, babe?’ he asks, and I nod.
Gemma has work in the morning so she has to go. I drunkenly see her to a taxi and wave her off. I am caught by a pair of hands on my waist again, although they’re not quite as gentle this time. I turn around and see Mark, the sleazy bassist, and he looks like he’s had quite a bit to drink as well. I call him sleazy because, like the Plastic Rap boys, Mark has always had an eye for the younger ladies. Luke and I call him the torpedo, which Mark thinks is a pretty badass nickname, but what we’re actually calling him is the tour-paedo.
‘Nicole! Let’s go, we’re going to party!’ he slurs, his breath stinking of cider, as he grabs me by the arm. I’m not entirely sure who is holding up whom but he is stuck to me like glue all the way to the club. I don’t even get to talk to Luke on the way there. I’m going to have to up my game.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_9fd7bff4-22b0-5595-be1f-7cb425f22c77)
The Mix-up
Once we’re inside the club, everyone heads straight over to the bar and Mark pushes a bottle of something colourful and alcoholic into my hand, which I happily accept. He is attempting to make small talk with me, but I am too drunk to focus on a word he is saying.
Luke walks over to us and grabs my hand.
‘May I have this dance, Miss Wilde?’ he asks.
The DJ is blasting out pop music – they’d never play a band like TFTR in a place like this, which is probably why we’re here.
I am dancing without a care in the world thanks to the alcohol, and although it’s a fast song Luke pulls me close and stares into my eyes. There’s something about him that makes you feel like the most important person in the world when you have his attention and it’s making me feel all funny inside. Either that or it’s all the booze combined with the fast movements.
The music is too loud to talk so we just dance, and after what feels like hours of shamelessly flirting through movement Luke pulls me close and tells me he’ll be right back. He gives me a kiss on the cheek and disappears into the crowd.
I decide to try and find the other boys, rather than stand here dancing on my own. I spy Ben sitting on his own, still messing around with that bloody phone, and then I spot Eddie and Mark who are lining up shot glasses on the bar and filling them with something I can’t quite make out. Noticing me, Eddie calls me over.
‘Just in time, would the lady care for a shot?’ he asks.
‘Oh, I think I’ll give this round a miss, boys. I’m starting to sober up.’
‘Well it’s only 1 a.m., so we can’t have that,’ Mark insists as he pushes the tiny glass into my hand.
‘Why not, eh?’ I never did have much willpower, which is probably why I go on to drink another three. Any chance I had of sobering up is long gone.
‘Let’s dance!’ Mark shouts as he drags me to the dance floor. I don’t want to offend him but I’d rather go and look for Luke. I wonder where he’s got to.
Not wanting to hurt Mark’s feelings, I go along with it. Dancing with Mark is very different, he dances like a drunken maniac although that is probably because he is one. He is spinning me around, dipping me – I’m feeling very sick but I have to admit that I’m having such a good time. Maybe I’m misreading the signs, but I could swear Mark is flirting with me. Some of his dance moves are a bit raunchy and his hands are all over me. If I were perfectly sober, I’d probably be worried that people could see.
There’s still no sign of Luke and before I know it, Mark is dragging me to the bar for last orders where we have yet more to drink. I’m officially drunk, although not quite as drunk as Eddie, who throws his arms around me and tells me how much he loves me, licking my face before falling to the floor. At this point Luke reappears.
‘All right, Nic? You look a bit tipsy, babe,’ he says with a chuckle.
‘Whaaat? I’m fine,’ I protest, never one to admit that I’m drunk out loud.
‘Well Ed certainly isn’t, so we’re going to get a taxi back to the bus.’
He and Ben grab one of Eddie’s arms each and carry him outside. Feeling a bit unsteady on my feet, I lean against the bar.
‘We’ll see you outside,’ he calls back.
‘Don’t worry, mate. I’ll take good care of her,’ Mark calls after him, grabbing hold of my hand as we follow them out.
Standing around waiting for the taxi, my body starts to shake. I can’t really feel the cold but I must be freezing. Mark gallantly slips an arm around me and rubs my shoulders, so maybe he does have a sweet side after all.
Luke looks over at us and gives me a concerned look, is he getting jealous?
‘You two look cosy,’ Luke calls over.
‘Poor little thing is freezing,’ Mark tells him.
‘Yeah, it is a bit chilly out here,’ he replies, equally as cold. He gives me a strange look but then his gaze is redirected to my ear.
‘Nicole, you’ve got an earring missing.’
I put both hands up to the sides of my head and he’s right.
‘Shit, it must have come out when I was dancing, do you think they’ll let me back in to look for it?’ I slur as I wobble on my feet. I’m really regretting that last drink. I can’t think straight and I can’t walk straight. As I head towards the club, the taxi pulls up and Ben begins trying to squash Eddie inside.
‘I can only take four of you,’ the taxi driver calls out, noticing that there are five of us.
‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Mark calls back. ‘Luke, I’ll take Nicole back in for her earring and then we’ll walk back. It’s not far and we’re not that drunk, right, Nic?’
‘Right, Mark!’ I give Luke a thumbs-up – clearly not the actions of a sober girl. Luke reluctantly gets in the taxi and they drive off, leaving me drunk and alone with sleazy Mark, the tour-paedo.
‘Are we going to get my earring?’ I ask, actually remembering something that happened in the past ten minutes.
‘Yes we are,’ he says as he bends over and picks my earring up from the floor. ‘Oh look, there it is. I must have been standing on it.’
My few remaining sober thoughts are telling me that maybe something is up here.
‘Shall we get back to the bus then?’ he asks, grabbing my hand and dragging me in what I assume is the right direction.
I don’t know what time it is, but it must be after 3 a.m. as we make our way down the eerily quiet streets of Manchester.
‘I think Luke reckons he’s in there with you, he’s probably waiting for you on the bus with his jeans around his ankles,’ Mark informs me, like it’s a done deal.
I laugh and shrug my shoulders. It’s nothing to do with him, is it?
‘We could always stay out for a bit,’ he suggests.
‘And go where? Everywhere is closed!’
‘Not everywhere,’ he says, leading me down a dark alleyway, and before I have time to take in exactly what is going on, Mark is pushing me up against the wall and kissing me hard on the lips.
As we kiss I open my eyes and take in our surroundings. This particular part of the city is practically silent and it’s too dark to see anything, but I know we must be near some bins because they are all I can smell. Mark’s horrible beard (think Brad Pitt, circa 2009) is rubbing against my face, making it itch, and I can feel him carelessly tugging at my clothes. At that moment an ambulance goes flying past, illuminating the alley with its bright-blue lights and making me jump with its loud siren. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t fancy this guy – bloody hell, I don’t even like this guy most of the time. My vodka goggles are abruptly ripped from my face and I push Mark away.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks breathlessly.
‘We’d better get back to the bus. They’re going to wonder where we are,’ I insist, but he’s having none of it, grabbing my hips and moving closer, squashing me against the wall.
‘They won’t give a shit. Come on, just relax!’
I can’t relax because I really don’t want to do this.
‘Someone might see us,’ I say, wriggling free from his grasp and making my way back towards the street.
‘Nicole, come on,’ he calls after me, but I keep walking and eventually he follows me. We walk the rest of the way in silence.
Finally through the bus doors safe and sound, I make my way up the stairs to the living area and realise everyone is already in their bunk – apart from Luke. He’s sitting on the sofa, probably waiting for me.
‘You guys took a while, is everything OK?’ he asks, sounding concerned.
‘Everything is great, man,’ Mark tells him, giving him a wink that we all know the meaning of. Oh God, I want to curl up and die! I’m fairly sure getting it on with one of his band friends is not the way to his heart.
‘Oh, right,’ Luke replies. ‘Well, I’m going to get to bed. Night, mate,’ he says giving Mark a pat on the shoulder. And then he looks at me. His eyes look so red and tired. ‘Night, Nicole,’ he says, walking off towards the bunks without waiting for a reply.
‘Night,’ I call after him, but it’s too late. I’ve really blown it this time. All I want to do is get in my bunk and pray that everything will be OK in the morning when we’re all sober. What happened with Mark was nothing really, a few seconds of madness, or was it minutes? I have no idea.
Mark stands up and, presuming he’s going to his bunk, I stand up too. He puts his hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down.
‘I’m going for a piss, don’t go to sleep. I’ll be back in a minute. We’ve got unfinished business.’
He walks off towards the toilet. Now I really do feel sick. There’s isn’t even a hint of sexiness in his request and I don’t even want to be near him, let alone anything else. So I do what any girl would do in my situation, I fake it. I lie down on the sofa, shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I hear him come back and loudly whisper my name a couple of times to try and wake me, but I keep my eyes tightly closed and eventually he gives up and goes off to his bunk. Too scared to move in case he hears me, I pretend to be asleep on the uncomfortable sofa until tiredness takes over and I fall asleep for real.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_ca8e3015-3293-53ff-a2b4-36ab65969435)
The Morning After the Night Before
Oh my God, I feel terrible. I’ve got such a headache and I’m too scared to open my eyes properly in case the light makes it worse. The events of last night are bouncing around in my head, which is probably contributing towards my headache. How could I have been so stupid? Mark might have masterminded a pretty decent plan to get me alone, but I didn’t have to go along with it. Yes, I was drunk enough to get caught up in things, but unfortunately I wasn’t quite drunk enough to forget what happened. But nothing did happen really, did it? It was just a silly kiss. I kiss people all the time – although, not everyone I kiss tries to remove my underwear in the street.
I open my eyes ever so slowly and stare at the ceiling for a second, giving them chance to adjust. The bus is silent so I assume everyone else is asleep. Rolling onto my side I see that Luke is sitting on the opposite side of the sofa, in the exact same place he was last night. He’s staring at me and his face is totally expressionless. I must look terrible, not only did I have such an awkward, uncomfortable night but I didn’t take my make-up off and you can guarantee my post-club hair will be a frizzy mess.
‘Good morning,’ I say weakly.
‘Hello,’ he replies. ‘Rough night?’
‘Something like that...what time is it?’
‘8 a.m. Want to go get a coffee?’ he asks in an unusually blunt manner.
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll just smarten myself up,’ I reply shyly. I really didn’t want him to see me like this.
‘OK. I’m going outside for a smoke, I’ll see you in a minute.’ And with that, he’s gone.
As I slowly sit up, I take in my surroundings. The living area is just as messy as I am. Empty cans and bottles are littered all over the place, there’s the odd junk food wrapper and cigarette packets scattered around and I am being over powered by two smells – Lynx and sweat. Unfortunately the latter scent is the stronger one.
Grabbing my bag, I make my way to the tiny bus toilet. It’s impossible not to feel claustrophobic in these bathrooms, there’s barely enough standing room for one person. The small space consists of a toilet, a small sink and a shower head, none of which are very easy to use, even when the bus is stationary. I catch sight of myself in the dirty mirror and, just as I suspected, I have make-up all over my face and a hairstyle that would be more at home in the 80s. Thankfully my face wipes are in the bag that I actually remembered, although unfortunately I don’t have a hairbrush or any clean clothes with me.
Winding my long blonde hair into a bun on the top of my head, I begin wiping off my make-up – only to start reapplying it seconds later. With my hair looking crap, I make the decision to wear even more make-up to compensate. Standing back to take in my appearance in the tiny mirror, I can only conclude that I look like a groupie. My hair is messed up, my make-up is over the top and I’m still wearing my gig outfit – or maybe I just feel like a groupie after last night.
I am distracted from my thoughts by a noise from my phone. Taking it out of my bag I realise it is the low battery alert and guess what? I packed my charger in the bag I left at home. Now I’m feeling seriously out of my comfort zone. I’m horribly hungover, I look a complete state, I’m going to have to face both Mark and Luke today and to top it all off my only form of contact with the ‘real world’ will be cut off when my phone dies, which I’m guessing is going to be sooner rather than later.
As I leave the bathroom and make my way past the bunks, I can hear girls giggling, but I don’t remember seeing any girls last night when we left the club. Maybe they found their way on to the bus while Mark and I made our detour.
As I pass Eddie’s bunk, a girl climbs out and, looking at the state of her, I start to feel slightly better about the way I look this morning. She is definitely still drunk, her clothes are hanging off and she’s looking at me like I’ve just fallen out of a tree. She actually looks like she has just fallen out of a tree.
‘Becky,’ she calls, looking at me but failing to acknowledge the fact that I am standing there and that she is blocking my path. Becky sticks her head out of the bottom bunk which, as far as I remember, is Ben’s bunk, but he must be in one of the spares because, as we all know, Ben has a girlfriend and he doesn’t stop texting her for long enough to even talk to another girl. Becky looks equally as rough as her friend so I’m quite happy to walk off the bus after them, they can only make me look better. Neither girl speaks to me until we get to the bus door, which neither of them can work out how to open.
‘How the fuck does this open?’ Becky asks me politely. I don’t say anything, I just reach forward and open the door. Becky and her friend fall about laughing and hop off the bus. As they walk past Luke, they both say ‘Bye, Luke’ in unison, laughing hysterically as they stagger off.
‘Bye, girls,’ he says and then turns towards me. ‘They weren’t with me you know.’
‘No judgement from me,’ I tell him, holding up my hands. I’m hardly in a position to say anything, am I? Feeling self-conscious, I let my hair down. Knots or no knots, my long hair is like my safety blanket. You don’t find many girls with real long hair these days, just cheap-looking hair extensions. It’s got to a point where people come up to me to ask me where I purchased such realistic fake hair, and I always tell them my little-known but very simple hair tip: if you don’t get your hair cut, it will grow. Magic, isn’t it?
‘You know I care what you think,’ he says, throwing the end of his cigarette on the floor and stamping it out. ‘Shall we go get that coffee?’
I nod and follow his lead. I love Manchester, but with my rubbish sense of direction I find it impossible to find my way around, and it doesn’t matter how many times I visit.
‘Cold, isn’t it?’ I say in an attempt to break the silence with small talk.
‘It is. You should have put something warmer on.’
I look down at my dress. Not only is it totally inappropriate for strolling around town at this time of morning, but it isn’t doing much to fight off the chilly October wind. Oh, and there’s a rather unattractive booze stain down the side that must have happened last night.
‘I would have, but I forgot the bag with my clothes in. Don’t laugh!’ I warn him.
He does laugh, and it’s adorable. His eyes light up when he laughs and he’s got the most gorgeous smile.
‘What are we going to do with you?’ he sighs, putting his arm around me and I wonder if he’s doing it to keep me warm, or just to touch me.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You’ll freeze! Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ve got something you can wear,’ he says as he ushers me into Starbucks.
I don’t think I have ever been so happy to be in Starbucks. I haven’t been inside this particular branch before, but it all feels so familiar and I instantly feel more relaxed. I may have been feeling out of my comfort zone before but this feels just like home.
We grab our drinks and take a seat on the sofa in the only dark corner of the room, something my hangover and I are very thankful for.
‘So last night was a bit mad,’ Luke starts. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t see very much of each other, did you sleep on the sofa all night?’
‘I did. I was tipsy, I must have fallen asleep there,’ I lie.
‘I’m sorry you had to walk back with Torpedo.’
What I’m thinking is that I’m sorry I had to as well, but what I say out loud is, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
The conversation feels forced and awkward, and it worries me that I still have to spend a few more days with these people, living in such a small space. Yes, it’s a big bus, but not when you’re trying to avoid people.
‘Well you must have had a horrible night’s sleep, but don’t worry, we’re booked in a hotel tonight.’
Thank God! After one night of not sleeping in a bed I am absolutely desperate to climb into one, even if I don’t get to sleep, even if it’s just for a minute.
‘We’ve got three rooms booked, that’s all the hotel in Birmingham had. Management wanted to put us somewhere really nice though. They’re kissing our arses because the album is doing so well.’
‘Yeah, that’s great. I’m missing sleeping in a proper bed already.’
‘We’ve got three double rooms. Mick is going in with Ben, and Mark and Eddie usually share,’ he tells me, waiting for a few seconds before he finishes his sentence. ‘We could share if you wanted to?’
I hesitate and before I get chance to reply, Luke starts talking again.
‘Unless you don’t want to. I mean, I can go in with Mark and Ed, no problem.’
‘No, it’s fine. We can’t have the celebrities squashed in the same bed,’ I tease, secretly delighted.
‘Good,’ he replies, leaning closer to me and resting his hand gently on my leg. ‘Maybe we’ll finally get some time alone together,’ he lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘I can’t wait to get you on your own.’
I smile and sip my coffee. So I haven’t scared him off after all. There’s nothing like a bit of jealousy to keep them keen.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_409588a6-e5e4-50fb-a407-f08e7e570855)
The Road
Back at the bus, I wait patiently as Luke searches around in the luggage compartment for something warm for me to wear. The dress I am currently wearing was perfect for keeping cool at the venue last night, but in the harsh light of day the alcohol stain stands out a mile and my pretty little dress does not go with the big, clumsy Uggs I am stuck wearing – but hey, at least my feet are warm.
‘No clean clothes,’ Luke calls out, still waist deep in the luggage compartment. ‘Unless you want something butch-looking that stinks of sweat.’
I laugh, although to be honest I’m a bit distracted staring at his bum.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ I eventually call back.
‘There is this though,’ he says, holding up the biggest Two For The Road T-shirt I have ever seen.
‘We’ve sold a lot of merchandise this tour, which is lucky for us. Sucks for you though, only extra-large T-shirts left – but it’s got to be warmer than what you’re wearing now, right? It will certainly cover more skin...unfortunately,’ he adds with a wink.
Taking the huge T-shirt from him, I hold it up against my body, you could fit at least two of me in this, but I think I can make it work. Sadly I don’t think I can do anything about the fact that it is bright orange, though.
‘This will be perfect, don’t worry.’
I head into the living area. No one is around so I can get changed here if I’m fast. Mark and Eddie have gone to get something to eat and, as far as I know, Ben is still sleeping. I check that I am totally alone one last time before slipping off my beautiful dress and slipping on my huge, bright-orange replacement. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to wear one of these T-shirts, even if they are a fan of the band, and surely if a person needed a shirt this big, they wouldn’t want it to be bright orange?
As I predicted, I look like I am wearing a tent, but I’m not finished yet. If there’s one thing I learned during my short stint at Brownies (I was way too edgy to cook, sew and collect crap that I found on the floor in the park), it’s that you should always carry safety pins in your bag. Pulling all the extra fabric from both sides, I pin them together in line with the small of my back before rolling up the sleeves a little. My huge orange T-shirt now looks a bit more like a dress. A bright-orange, TFTR-branded dress that doesn’t really clash too much with my boots. To be honest, my gold accessories set it off quite nicely. I don’t look too shocking and I’m definitely warmer.
Stepping off the bus, I see Mark, Luke and Eddie smoking, and they look very amused by my outfit – probably because it’s free advertising for them.
‘Wilde, what did you do to it?’ Luke asks, astonished. ‘It actually suits you!’
‘That’s the thing with our Nicole, she can make anything look amazing, can’t you, babe?’ Eddie says, taking a final drag on his cigarette and flicking it across the car park.
‘You’re too kind, boys,’ I say, embarrassed but flattered to hear Eddie refer to me as theirs.
I look over at Mark, who is leaning on the bus. He hasn’t spoken to me today and I don’t think he’s going to either.
‘We’d better get a move on,’ Eddie says, jumping aboard the bus way too energetically for someone who drank so much last night. ‘Luke, get that lazy bastard Ben up, will you?’
‘I’m on it!’ he replies, giving Eddie a playful smack on the bum as he follows him up the stairs.
It’s just me and Mark now. Awkward. If he’s not going to say anything, then I guess I’d better try.
‘How are you today?’ I ask with a smile.
‘Fine, cheers,’ he replies without even looking up.
‘Good,’ I say undefeated. ‘Not many dates left now, I bet you’ll miss it when it’s over.’
‘Yeah, probably.’
This is impossible. I was hoping that last night he was either too drunk to remember, or at least too drunk to care, but I’m guessing he isn’t my biggest fan right now.
‘I’ll see you on the bus, yeah?’ I ask, but I don’t expect him to reply, and he doesn’t. Then, the second my foot touches the first step, he calls after me.
‘I hear you’re sharing a room with Luke tonight. There’s a shocker,’ he says with an extra helping of sarcasm, just in case I wasn’t picking up the vibes.
It’s my turn to do the ignoring. I could kick off, but where would that get me? He’s ‘the talent’ and I’d be off this bus in a flash if I got in his face. Anyway, I’m not going to let him ruin tonight for me. So what if I’m sharing a room with Luke? It’s nothing to do with him.
Back on the bus, I make my way to the living area. The guys already have a film on so I take a seat next to Eddie. Mark isn’t far behind, and he sits down opposite me. I’m so not looking forward to the drive to Birmingham, all squashed up together in this small space.
‘So, Nicole, this feature you’re writing on our tour, anything interesting to report yet?’ Eddie asks me and I wonder if Mark told him anything when they were alone together this morning.
‘Plenty,’ I tease. ‘You’re going to wish you hadn’t invited me.’
‘Don’t pull any punches,’ he replies. ‘What you looking so worried about, Boy Wonder?’ he adds, looking over at Ben. Ben is so quiet and, surprise, surprise, he’s already texting away on his phone.
‘Oi, I’m talking to you. Had fun last night, didn’t you?’ Eddie shouts at Ben – who looks embarrassed as hell right now – in a borderline aggressive manner.
That reminds me, I’m here to write a feature and not to groupie my way through the whole band.
Apart from the noise coming from the TV, and the odd text alert from Ben’s phone, the bus is so quiet. The roadies have their own transport and do their own thing, and Mick, the band’s tour manager, is also their driver so it’s just me and the boys here, and everyone is too tired or too hungover to chat.
Eddie yawns, stretching out his arms and wrapping one around me. As he does this, Mark sniggers and shoots me a filthy look. I’m finding it hard not to look at him because he’s sitting opposite me. I take my phone from my bag and I only get to tap a few buttons before it turns off. Bloody smartphones and their rubbish battery life. I’ll just close my eyes for a bit, anything that means I don’t have to look at Mark.
Awkwardness aside, I’m really looking forward to tonight. Sleeping in a nice hotel is always better than sleeping on the bus and it will be much easier to avoid Mark too. Why does drama follow me around where-ever I go? I still can’t get my head around what happened last night. We’ve never really been that close, not like I am with Ed and Luke, but he was hell-bent on getting close last night. One thing I do know for sure though, this won’t be mentioned in the magazine.
I wish I could text Emily. I’ll bet she’s sitting at my desk with her feet up. I left her in charge and under strict instructions to call me if anything eventful happened. Obviously she can’t do that now that my battery has died, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. I hope Vicky isn’t taking the piss – I still can’t believe she’s staying at Em’s house. Not only is she taking advantage of her good nature, but she’s making it impossible for us to chat like we usually do, she is always around.
How long does it take to get to Birmingham, seriously? This is the longest journey of my life. My head is resting on Eddie’s chest and I realise I must have dozed off for a bit. I have no idea for how long but we’re still not there yet. Mark and Luke are playing a video game, Ben is still texting and Eddie is asleep. The living area looks a little tidier, which means someone must have been really bored.
Mess aside, I adore tour buses. Try to imagine a really glamorous caravan. This isn’t the biggest one I’ve been on, but it has bunks for eight people so it’s still pretty massive. The living area is amazing, you can’t really tell that you’re on a bus. There’s a big table surrounded by sofas and blacked-out windows and a massive flat-screen TV on the wall with a DVD player and a PS3. The kitchen has everything you could need – I imagine, you know I’m not a very kitchen-y person. There’s a kettle, fridge, microwave and even an ice-maker. Just down the aisle is where the bunks are, four on each side. They’re not the comfiest beds in the world, but they’re certainly not the worst. I could so easily live on one of these buses – as long as I had more clothes with me, of course.
I’m still feeling tired and Eddie is so comfy to cuddle up to – despite the rock-hard muscles in his chest – maybe I’ll just fall back asleep until we get there.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_a8a04e7d-76e6-54a0-9831-c2acaacbb5c6)
The Slut
The sun is shining brightly in Birmingham today, it’s a shame it is so damn cold. As a result of waking up on the sofa yet again today, my back is killing me.
I don’t know where everyone is. Eddie is asleep next to me, although with me leaning on him I doubt he could move even if he wanted to, and Mark is still sat in the same place, glaring at me again. I wonder if he’s moved at all.
Thank God, we are finally here. I don’t know my way around Birmingham (don’t act like you’re surprised) but I’d really like to get to a decent clothes shop and get something to wear. The novelty is starting to wear off my bright orange tent-dress.
‘All right, Mark?’ I ask brightly, giving him another chance to put what happened behind us.
‘Yeah, fine. Worming your way in with Eddie now, are you?’
‘She’s been in with me for a long time, you grumpy fucker,’ Eddie says sounding half asleep, his eyes still closed.
‘I’m going for a shower,’ Mark informs us, storming off.
‘What’s his problem?’ Eddie asks me as soon as Mark has gone. ‘You knock him back last night or something?’
‘Not exactly,’ I reply, hoping that will be the end of it.
‘No way!’ he shouts, sitting up straight and suddenly wide awake. ‘You knocked him back? Tell me everything!’
‘It’s nothing really.’
‘I’m going to get you so drunk tonight, you’re going to tell me everything,’ he laughs.
‘Yeah right, you’re going to be less drunk than me? Remind me, who had to be carried to the taxi last night?’
‘Don’t put that in your magazine,’ he laughs. ‘The chicks won’t go for that.’
‘It was only today you told me that I could write about anything,’ I remind him.
‘Yeah, anything but that. Write about how you knocked Mark back though.’
He’s clearly finding this hilarious and I have to admit he’s cheering me up.
‘Oi, stop saying that!’ I nudge him in the ribs. As funny as it is, I don’t want anyone to hear – especially Luke.
‘Anyway, I’m beginning to think it’s the other guys who can’t handle their drink,’ Eddie tells me.
‘And why is that?’ I ask. This should be good.
‘Because when Luke and Ben carried me to the taxi last night, they dropped me twice,’ he jokes. ‘And as for Mark, he had to be smashed if he thought he had a chance with you.’
The minute the tour bus pulled up outside the venue, the plan was for me to go and pick up something to wear tonight. I’d hoped we’d be in the city centre but I’ve been told that we’re nowhere near a clothes shop of any description. I had a little wander down the road but, not wanting to get lost, I had to admit defeat. Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be...an orange. I am just going to have to come to terms with the fact that this is the outfit I will be wearing to the show tonight. I’m either going to look like a crazy fan or a skanky groupie and I’m not sure which is worse. This is also the outfit I am going to be wearing when I try to seduce Luke – a hideous orange T-shirt, branded with the name of his band. If he’s vain enough, that will probably do the trick. Eddie keeps making dirty comments about how he’s always wanted to get it on with a girl wearing his band’s merchandise. I think he’s joking but you never know with Eddie. Some poor cow will probably be dressing up in the works for him tonight.
We are ushered from the bus, into the venue and straight to backstage room, and what a dump it is. The dressing room is small, with no windows, bare walls and a bare floor. Walking over to the table where the food is laid out, I grab a can of Coke and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and plonk myself down on one of the battered old sofas, trying to ignore the suspicious stains on the cushions.
The boys are fussing around and getting changed, apart from Eddie who is studying the food carefully. He’s upset because apparently there are things that were on the rider that are not on the table, and he’s shouting at Mick to do something about it. It doesn’t matter that the table is covered with food and drink, what Eddie wants Eddie gets. Some poor venue worker is sent out to get the missing items. Maybe things would change if I were famous, but I can’t imagine kicking off because someone forgot to buy me some ketchup.
When it is finally my turn to have a shower, I make it snappy before slipping my T-shirt back on. Now that I’m hanging around the backstage area, I have to have my Access All Areas pass on show which leaves me no choice but to wear it around my neck. There’s no doubt about it, I look like a total nerd.
All alone backstage, I examine the table of food again. I didn’t eat much yesterday and I’ve decided that was the reason I got so drunk last night (although it probably had more to do with the fact that I just drank way too much). I make myself a sandwich and, suddenly starving, I take an over-enthusiastic bite. Just my luck, Luke walks back into the room as I’m struggling to chew a huge mouthful of food. I have managed to make myself look like an even bigger loser, but at least I’m making him smile.
‘Bitten off more than you can chew?’ he asks.
He doesn’t know the half of it. He waits patiently for a reply.
‘Done,’ I say victoriously, putting the rest of the sandwich to one side because suddenly I’m not that hungry any more.
‘Well check out that super-cool laminated pass hanging around your neck. Are you with the band?’ he asks. He’s obviously not done teasing me just yet.
Now is my chance. Toying with my lanyard, I give him my sexiest look, but as I take a step towards him I catch my foot on a guitar lead and fall into him, face first. Luckily, he catches me and doesn’t let go.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he says with a laugh, before leaning in closer and whispering into my ear. ‘At least wait until I’ve got you in my room.’
With his face still just inches from mine, Luke starts gently kissing my neck and it’s fortunate that he is still holding me because my legs instantly turn to jelly. Next thing I know, we’re kissing on the lips. I don’t want to sound all lame and high school again, but this is our first proper kiss and all that’s missing is the firework display. As he pushes me back onto the tatty old sofa, I wrap my legs around his waist. I can’t believe this is actually happening. Just as our kisses get heavier, I faintly hear the door open and things come to a sudden stop. I smile and try to look innocent, something that I have perfected over the years to get myself out of tricky situations. With that said, even the most innocent of innocent looks couldn’t make this situation look like anything other than what it is because my legs are still wrapped tightly around Luke’s waist and locked at the ankle. If it’s anyone other than Mark then I might be able to live this one down. I dare myself to look towards the door and, of course, it’s Mark. He glares at me before wandering over to fridge.
‘Not interrupting anything, I hope,’ he says, grabbing a can of something and plonking himself down next to us.
‘Actually, mate...’ Luke begins, but Mark doesn’t let him finish.
‘Good, because I need something to eat and Eddie needs you on the stage. Now.’
Luke looks at me and gives me that cheeky smile I love so much. He plants a peck on my lips and manages to free himself from my grasp, pulling up and fastening his jeans as he leaves the room – I didn’t even realise he’d undone them, what moves he has! It’s just me and Mark now, and as long as he doesn’t speak to me then I’ll happily keep out of his way.
‘I knew you were a groupie, but fucking hell. You could at least wait twenty-four hours between shagging each band member. Bloody slapper.’ he snaps at me.
I like to think I’m a pretty chilled lady, a lover not a fighter and all that, but I can’t keep my temper under control any longer and I snap back.
‘Excuse me?’ I ask, standing up and trying to subtly pull my dress back down over my lower half. ‘First of all, I haven’t shagged anyone,’ I yell. ‘And second of all, I was very drunk last night, and you knew that, and I didn’t want to kiss you, and you knew that too. OK, I might have kissed you back for a second but, as drunk as I was, I still came to my senses. Get the fuck over it!’
It’s amazing how a little bit of anger brings out my inner northern monkey.
Mark looks gobsmacked. Friend or not, I probably shouldn’t upset the celebrities, but how dare he call me a slapper? If I had shagged him down that alley, he probably wouldn’t be calling me any names.
‘Do what you want, write what you want, shag who you want!’ he shouts, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.
There are hundreds of girls queuing up outside the venue right now and, despite being a podgy arsehole in need of a good wash and a shave, he could probably have his pick of any of them. Why waste his time getting angry at me?
My eyes start to feel heavy and a huge tear falls from my right eye, rolling down my face and stripping my skin of every ounce of make-up that dares to stand in its path. I wipe it quickly and grab my foundation from my bag. I can’t let anyone see me crying.
I should be buzzing after kissing Luke. Instead, I am sitting in a backstage room, all on my own, sobbing because some C-list bassist just called me a slapper.
As I smarten myself up and retouch my make-up, I take yet another long, hard look in the mirror. Tonight is going to be a long night.
Chapter Twelve (#ulink_042e0de2-8d66-5854-9915-1aab99a0deb5)
The Skanky Groupies
After an awesome performance (including an encore), I am clapping and screaming just as much as any other fan in the room – maybe more so.
‘Are you their mascot?’ a handsome older man asks me, nodding in the direction of the hideous orange dress I forgot I was wearing.
‘Not exactly,’ I tell him with a giggle. ‘It’s a funny story really.’
‘I hope you’re going to tell me it.’
‘To summarise...’ I take a deep breath. ‘I am touring with the band, to write a magazine feature, but I forgot my bag and I spilt a drink on my pretty dress, so Luke, the drummer, was kind enough to give me this to wear.’
‘Wow, he must hate you!’ the stranger says, insulting my dress.
‘I know, right? What a bastard!’
He laughs.
‘You said you’re writing a feature on the band? I’m here to write a review for the local paper,’ he informs me.
‘Oops! Did I say he was a bastard? Because what I mean to say is what a wonderful band this is, and how you should definitely give them a good review!’
‘Don’t worry, I’m impressed. My name is Kenny by the way.’
‘Nice to meet you, Kenny.’ I shake his hand, ‘I’m Nicole.’
‘It’s nice to meet you too. Can I buy you a drink? We can swap notes.’
The band have only just finished and I know I’m going to be on my own while they do promo and meet fans, so I agree and we take a seat at the bar. Kenny seems like a nice guy and he’s a music reviewer for the local press so I’m sure I can learn a thing or two from him.
‘I think your friend is worried about you,’ Kenny tells me, gesturing towards Luke with a swift movement of his eyes.
I glance over and he’s right, Luke is giving us a filthy look.
‘He needn’t be worried, I’m more interested in him than I am in you, darling,’ he says with a wink.
Poor Luke, if only he knew.
‘I’ll put in a good word for you,’ I tell Kenny, winking right back at him.
‘Don’t worry about it, I think he’s got his eye on someone else in this room and I think we both know who that is.’
I smile, but then something catches my eye.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ I say, making my way over to the band.
The guys are surrounded by fans, but there’s this one girl who caught my eye because she is wearing the same orange T-shirt as me.
I tap her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you just hate it when someone wears the same outfit as you?’
‘It looks better on you,’ she replies with an unconvincing smile.
‘Are you trying to meet the band?’ I ask.
‘Trying.’ She holds up a poster. ‘I wanted them to sign this but it’s like I’m invisible.’
‘I’m a friend of theirs, I’ll get them to sign it.’
Taking the poster and marker pen, I start with Luke.
‘Can you sign this for that lovely girl over there?’ I ask him.
‘Sure. Who’s that guy you’re with?’
‘A journalist, so be nice,’ I warn him.
Ben signs the poster next, and thankfully he gets Mark to sign it too. If I’d asked, he probably would have told me to piss off. Now all I need is Eddie, and skanky groupies are his favourite thing so it’s going to be tough getting his attention. I push my way through a girl gang and hook my arm around Eddie’s. You’ve got to get territorial and show them who is boss, it’s the only way a girl can survive in this environment.
‘Eddie, baby, could you sign this for my friend please?’
‘Anything for you, Miss Wilde,’ he says, taking the pen and signing over his face on the poster. ‘Give me a kiss,’ he says before puckering up, and I’m not sure who he’s showing off for but I’m happy to help.
‘No way, I know where that mouth has been,’ I tease as I reach for the poster, but he holds it out of my reach and makes kissy noises at me.
I peck him on the lips and give the girls a friendly smile before taking the poster and making my way back towards my new friend.
‘Ta-da,’ I say, handing her the poster along with a plectrum, a wristband and some stickers. ‘And here’s a few bits from the merch stand too.’
Bless her, she looks so happy. It really bugs me that Eddie only gives attention to the girls he fancies. It’s girls like this who pay his wages, not the ones who are only here to try and sleep with him.
I head back over to the bar where Kenny is sitting.
‘I saw what you did. You’re a real sweetheart, aren’t you, Nicole?’
‘Oh, I do try,’ I say with a laugh, just as Luke appears.
I introduce them and Luke shakes Kenny’s hand. I’m surprised he isn’t doing more to soften up the guy who will be reviewing him for the entire city of Birmingham to read.
Luke tells me that they’ve got to head back to the hotel for an interview, which I’m guessing is my cue to say goodbye to my new best friend and go with them.
‘Kenny, do you want to come and have a drink in the hotel bar?’ I ask. ‘I want to hear more of your stories, and if these guys are doing an interview I’ll only have to sit and watch.’
‘I’d love to,’ Kenny replies, clearly annoying Luke by doing so.
‘Right, well we’re going now so if you’re coming get a move on,’ Luke tells us, so we knock back the remainder of our drinks and follow his lead.
Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_f557ec98-60f7-52db-824f-86b669fa648e)
The Crack
The hotel we are staying in is absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t ever afford to stay in a place like this on my own, but that’s the beauty of being a hanger-on; someone else always foots the bill. I know that I’m lucky to stay in such beautiful places, which is probably why I don’t take any of it for granted, unlike most of the bands I know.
Tonight we’re staying at the Hotel Regale. I’ve only just stepped through the door and I’m already in love with the place. Inside the lobby they have replaced one of the walls with a huge fish tank, which is absolutely mesmerising – even to an entirely sober person, I’d imagine. On the other side of the tank is the bar, which is where Kenny and I are heading. There’s no point in me going up to the room and hanging around in the background while they do their interview, I may as well be down here sucking Dutch courage through a sparkly straw.
As soon as they’re done, Luke is going to call Reception and have someone let me know I can go up. I’m suddenly really nervous again, but trying to keep it out of my mind while I’m chatting to Kenny. We’re swapping stories about interviews and gigs. I know I have some great tales to tell (not that I ever would outside of the loop), but I am so jealous of some of his stories. Yes, we’ve only just met, but we’re already sharing a little too much information – this must be how rumours start, with journalists getting tipsy and exchanging stories.
It isn’t long before a nice lady lets me know that ‘Mr Fox’ is waiting for me. It sounds so weird to hear Luke being referred to as Mr Fox, like he’s a proper adult.
I say goodbye to my new friend and we swap details before I make my way to the lift. I hang back for a few minutes, spotting Mick the tour manager getting in the lift with a gang of giggly girls. No prizes what, or should I say who Eddie is doing tonight. I’m so glad I’m in with Luke because I am so not in the mood for a party with giggly fan-girls – and I’m allowed to say that because I used to be one, I know how annoying we are.
The nerves finally hit me as I step out of the lift. Luke is standing outside the door waiting for me, and he must have had quite a bit to drink while they were doing their interview because he is wasted.
‘Shall we go in?’ he asks, fiddling with the keycard for the room. For some reason he can’t get the door to open.
‘Do you want me to do that?’ I ask.
‘I can do it,’ he snaps.
I thought maybe he was just nervous too, but he looks terrible. His eyes are red and watery, and between attempts to get the door open he is rubbing his nose. If we were in the ‘real world’, I’d probably think he was coming down with a cold, but we’re not in the ‘real world’, are we?
In a way, I am proud of myself, I’ve always been very anti-illegal drugs and there’s a huge amount of temptation in the biz. Well, I’ve never been tempted. Sadly, it looks like Luke has. I know a lot of bands are close friends of Mary Joanna (say it quickly), but I’m guessing Luke is on something much harder. So the rumours are true.
Finally he gets the door open, laughing as he falls through the doorway, only just managing to stay upright. Kicking the door shut, Luke puts his hands on the wall either side of me. I can’t move and I’m being forced to look into his eyes. I’d imagined this moment being intense, but this just feels all wrong. Not only that, but he looks a mess – sexy doesn’t spring to mind at all.
He starts kissing me but it doesn’t feel like it did earlier. Earlier was great, this is awful. I feel uncomfortable and his constant sniffling is making me feel kind of sick so I pull away.
‘Everything OK?’ asks the snotty-nosed man of my dreams.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘I’m fine, let’s just get on with it,’ he insists, sounding slightly annoyed that I stopped him.
‘Get on with it? You smooth-talker.’
He ignores my sarcasm and starts kissing me again, pushing me onto the bed. After five minutes of awkward – and to be honest, slightly snotty – kisses, he rolls off me and sits on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. He seems frustrated and he’s swearing under his breath, banging his hands on the bed like some kind of mad man.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ he shouts to himself. To be honest, I’m a little bit scared.
‘I’ll be right back, just going to the bathroom,’ I tell him. I don’t wait for a reply before heading into the huge bathroom and locking the door behind me. I close the lid on the toilet and sit down. The bath looks so inviting, I’d love to have a long soak with lots of bubbles, pull on one of the fluffy bath robes, eat room service, watch TV and then fall asleep in the big, comfy bed – rock and roll. With a wasted Luke waiting for me in the big, comfy bed, I can forget about relaxing tonight though, and even though I would rather sit here until morning, I know that I have to go back out there. I’m not sure what has happened to the man I was pretty much in love with, but that isn’t him sitting in there waiting for me and that definitely wasn’t him throwing me around the room before. It’s only a matter of hours since we kissed in the dressing room, but now it’s like that perfect kiss never happened. His mood is all over the place, one minute he is the life of the party, the next he’s losing his temper.
I check the time and realise I have been sitting in here for twenty minutes now. It’s time to face the music or, in this case, the musician.
It turns out I have nothing to worry about. Luke is fast asleep, the wrong way across the bed, with his jeans and his boxers around his ankles. His mouth is wide open and even though his eyes are closed, they still look so sore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so unattractive. A lesser woman than me would take a photograph – who am I kidding? If my phone battery wasn’t flat I’d probably snap a quick one, if only to remind myself that I never slept with a coke-head. That has to be the reason he’s acting like this, it makes too much sense not to be.
I can see his chest moving so at least I know he’s breathing, but I still don’t fancy sleeping in here with him. I grab the spare keycard for the room next door. I might as well head to the party, drink this out of my mind and try and get some sleep in there.
Opening the door to Eddie and Mark’s room (with ease, because I’m not high), I realise there isn’t a party going on because all is quiet. This room is much bigger than ours, and thinking I hear someone in the bedroom I walk though, only to be greeted by Ben’s bare arse and a rather embarrassed-looking girl underneath him. From the way he described his girlfriend to me earlier, I can safely say this isn’t her.
With no idea where anyone else is, I head back to the bar, plonk myself on a sofa and gaze at the fish. Maybe Eddie and Mark will appear, maybe Ben’s female friend will leave and I can go back up, or maybe Luke will come looking for me.
The past couple of days have been so weird. I thought these guys were my friends – I’ve know them for years, I’ve got drunk with them a million times before, I’ve crashed on the bus and in hotels with them countless times – but these past few days I’ve seen another side to them, their true colours or the side effects of fame? I just don’t know. Eddie, the one who I expect the least of based on past experiences, is the only one who has pleasantly surprised me, or at the least remained consistent.
I thought this was going to be the best tour ever and I thought things were going to work out great between me and Luke, but after several bad experiences with boys in bands you’d think I’d know better by now. I guess I just thought things were going to be different this time.
I don’t know how I’m going to face them all tomorrow. After this business with Luke, my argument with Mark and catching Ben in the act, I’ll be avoiding everyone apart from Eddie tomorrow. To be honest, all I care about right now is finding someone I know, getting to bed and getting some sleep. I’ll just wait here and hopefully someone will come looking for me.
Chapter Fourteen (#ulink_1f23854d-20ce-5c39-b14e-d5c6e9f49d8b)
The Accident
Another day, another night sleeping on another uncomfortable sofa – Nicole Wilde, this is your life.
This morning I woke up on the sofa in the hotel bar. I slept there all night. I’m lucky a member of staff didn’t wake me up and ask me to move because I really don’t know where I would have gone.
It’s 9 a.m. now. I’ve just been in the toilets freshening up and before I have chance to worry about what to do next, I spot Mick at the reception desk – he looks stressed-out.
‘Everything OK, Mick?’ I ask.
‘Nicole, I wondered where you’d got to. Everything is not OK – one minute.’
He’s on the phone, saying something about a hospital and cancelling the rest of the tour. All kinds of thoughts are running through my head. Was Luke definitely OK when I left him last night? I was sure he was breathing when I left him, but I’ll never forgive myself if something happened to him after I left. I wait patiently for Mick to finish on the phone and tell me what’s going on.
‘Right,’ he composes himself, exhaling heavily and running a hand over his bald head. ‘There was a bit of an accident last night.’ He stops again, this time to punch something into his phone. ‘At some point, while I was fast asleep might I add, a couple of the boys took the party to the hotel pool.’
I feel momentarily relieved because Luke hasn’t choked to death on his vomit, but someone has had an accident…
‘Eddie was pissing around on the diving board, he tried to jump in and hit his leg on the side of the pool. He’s at the hospital now, they say his leg is broken. We might have to cancel the rest of the tour. They’re giving him some pain relief and putting a temporary cast on, and then we’re heading back to London so he can see his own doctor. Are you coming back with us?’
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Portia MacIntosh
Nicole Wilde’s life is one of sell-out gigs, bunking on tour buses, trashing hotels and partying with the band all night long. But she’s not in the band. She is a music journalist, paid to be the world’s greatest groupie– and she loves it!Nicole has the party lifestyle – and the hangovers to prove it – but no one stops her in the supermarket on a bad hair day. Until she is papped in an incriminating position with recently married mega-star Dylan King of The Burnouts and the tabloids start hounding her. This isn’t so fun. Especially when her make-up is a mess and she hasn’t yet had a chance to clean her teeth.Dylan accuses her of ruining his marriage. His handsome PR agent, Charles, calls her a tart. She has to take gorgeous Luke from Two For the Road to hospital after a drug incident. And she’s dropped her mobile phone in the bath! Too much celebrity lifestyle for one week? Time to slow down and take stock? Maybe for somebody else. But Nicole Wilde is going to come out fighting!Don't miss Portia MacIntosh's linked novella Between a Rockstar and a Hardplace to see where Nicole started out!Praise for Portia MacIntosh'How Not to be Starstruck was impossible to put down, hilarious, fun, flirty and packed with excitement.' - Victoria Loves Books'A brilliant story full of fun, gorgeous rockstars, big egos and great friendships.' - A Novel Thought'if you are looking for a fictional tale of outrageous excess and the rock star life it is well worth a read.' - Books with Bunny'For a Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl meets "Life of the rich and famous" -vibe: get yourself a copy of both Portia's novels. Very, very enjoyable read and can't wait for more!' - M's Bookshelf'I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is a must read for any one fancying a light heart and humour read, which can be devoured in one sitting.' - Compelling Reads
Nicole Wilde’s life is one of sell-out gigs, bunking on tour buses, trashing hotels and partying with the band all night long. But she’s not in the band. She is a music journalist, paid to be the world’s greatest groupie– and she loves it!
Nicole has the party lifestyle – and the hangovers to prove it – but no one stops her in the supermarket on a bad hair day. Until she is papped in an incriminating position with recently married mega-star Dylan King of The Burnouts and the tabloids start hounding her. This isn’t so fun. Especially when her make-up is a mess and she hasn’t yet had a chance to clean her teeth.
Dylan accuses her of ruining his marriage. His handsome PR agent, Charles, calls her a tart. She has to take gorgeous Luke from Two For the Road to hospital after a drug incident. And she’s dropped her mobile phone in the bath! Too much celebrity lifestyle for one week? Time to slow down and take stock? Maybe for somebody else. But Nicole Wilde is going to come out fighting!
Don’t miss Portia MacIntosh’s linked novella Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place to see where Nicole started out!
Also available by Portia MacIntosh
Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place
How Not to be Starstruck
Portia MacIntosh
Copyright (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Portia MacIntosh 2014
Portia MacIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472094681
Version date: 2018-07-23
Contents
Cover (#ucabcefe6-5f5e-565e-9abd-48b525385cb2)
Blurb (#u39a527c5-2850-52f1-b127-047f56af8dab)
Book List (#ua5d6a5c4-6475-5e8f-987e-31800dd5178b)
Title Page (#u50eedd0f-e7d3-5352-a8c3-1df08e7165ca)
Copyright
Author Bio (#ua2c21c6f-65bc-5940-8db6-1763268a1476)
Acknowledgements (#u6c58eb7e-1ced-53de-9231-eeceaf157d16)
Dedication (#u06fe0db1-8fa7-5480-85e7-a245bf601709)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher
When she was fifteen years old, Portia MacIntosh fell in with a bad crowd…rockstars. After disappearing on tour and living the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle for a few years, Portia landed a job in the music industry – but only so that she didn’t have to join the real world just yet.
Now in her twenties, Portia is ready to spill the beans on the things she has witnessed over the years. Well, kind of. If her famous friends knew that she was borrowing their lives to inspire her fiction, they would stop inviting her on tour and banish her from the inner circle. Then she really would have to rejoin the real world, and she’s still not ready for that.
Portia only started writing novels to share her secrets, but then she realised she actually quite liked writing – maybe even more than she likes living on a bus with a bunch of smelly boys – and has since tried her hand at writing about other things.
Check out Portia’s blog at: www.portiamacintosh.tumblr.com (http://www.portiamacintosh.tumblr.com)
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh (https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh)
…and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia (https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia)
Massive thanks to the lovely HQ Digital UK team – especially Lucy, Victoria and Jo.
Thank you to all my music industry friends – if you guys didn’t do half the hilarious/terrible/unbelievable things that you do, I wouldn’t have anywhere near as much material to work with.
A big thank you to my Gosling Girls - Megan, Kirsty, Victoria and Laura - and to all the wonderful people who read and reviewed Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place.
And finally, the biggest thank you of all to my family and my band boy. You put up with an awful lot and without you none of this would have been possible.
For my band boy
Chapter One (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
The Fairy Tale
I wonder who started the bloody ridiculous rumour that women can multi-task effortlessly. I’d love to know so that I can send them a photograph of me right now (obviously someone else would have to take it for me) epic-failing my way to the office.
It’s 11 a.m. on an exceptionally cold Monday morning and I’m late for work. Again, and as always. Currently dodging my way through the busy streets of Leeds, I’m desperately trying not to drop anything. In my right hand I have four take-away cups of coffee – in a holder obviously, I’m good but I’m not that good – my massive Mary Poppins-style handbag hooked on my left arm and my mobile phone in my left hand. It’s still in my hand because, as I was leaving Starbucks, I received a call from work and without a free hand to put my phone back in my bag, that’s where it’s going to have to stay.
Thankfully work is just around the corner from my flat, although I was supposed to be at the office by 10 a.m. Stopping at Starbucks has only made me even later but I’m hoping the coffees will score me some brownie points with the staff. If you can’t be on time, the least you can do is suck up to people.
Just one more road to cross and I’ll be there. Balancing on the edge of the curb in my silly yet beautiful shoes, I feel like the slightest breeze could knock me off my feet. As the green man appears, I step off the pavement with the rest of the sheep. Eyeballing the window of my office for angry faces, I make it half way across the road when something hits me – literally hits me. As I fall to the ground in what feels like super-slow, Matrix-esque motion (although it probably doesn’t look quite so graceful to the people around me), my impressive coffee-handbag-phone balancing act comes to an abrupt end. Landing flat on my back, right there in the middle of the road, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Was I hit by a bus? I can hear people fussing around me and the impatient blaring of car horns. They can piss off, I could be dead...although if I’m thinking that, chances are I’m probably still alive, right?
As I run my hands down my body to check for major injuries, I feel that my skirt is up around my waist. I have never been happier to be wearing such thick tights, God bless the crappy, cold weather we have up north.
There’s a strong smell of coffee coming from the double-digits’-worth of Starbucks puddle on the road next to me, which thankfully hasn’t trickled towards me, although I am tempted to roll over and lap it up.
Despite having the wind knocked out of me, I think I’m going to make it.
‘I am so sorry, let me help you up,’ I hear a deep, apologetic voice insist as a hand reaches for mine.
Flat on my back and in the middle of the road, with my skirt hitched up around my waist, I am in no position to be declining help, so I grab the stranger’s hand and let him yank me to my feet.
‘Here’s your phone, I hope it isn’t broken. Shit, there are a couple of scratches on it,’ the stranger informs me as he hands me my fairly battered-looking phone. My phone is noticeably scratched, but I don’t tell him that most of the damage probably occurred the time my phone took a tumble down the stairs, bashed against something in my handbag, magically escaped my grasp, etc. In fact, my phone has been dropped so many times it’s a miracle that it still works. I prod a button on the front with a very shaky finger and my trusty phone springs to life as usual. What a trooper. Only after making sure my phone is OK do I actually look the only person who stopped to help me in the eye. Ushering me back across the road (the side I don’t want to be on) is an absolutely gorgeous man. Shit, I can’t believe he saw me lying in the road like that. He’s wearing a very flashy suit and clutching a fat, important-looking file stuffed with papers. Oh, and he has one of my shoes tucked under his arm, which explains why I’m limping – I thought I’d snapped my ankle or something.
‘Thanks for helping me. I’m not sure what happened, I was crossing the road and—’ I stop mid-sentence. The truth is, I have no idea what happened.
The good-looking stranger sits me down on the nearest bench.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks me with a very concerned look on his face. He looks like every portrayal of Prince Charming I have ever seen in the movies, with an added (and well-used) gym membership thrown into the mix.
‘I’m OK, just a bit shaken up. Did you see what happened?’
‘Please, wait here,’ handsome stranger insists. ‘I have to get this file to someone in that building.’ He gestures towards the offices behind us with the fat file. ‘Just...don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes, I’ll explain everything then. Get your breath back, OK?’
I nod my head and watch him dash into the building behind me, my shoe still tucked under his arm which means I couldn’t leave if I wanted to – not that wearing only one shoe concerns me, but just one of these particular shoes is worth more than most of my other pairs.
Whatever happened to me, I am so lucky that I landed on my bum because I think it broke my fall. I’ll never complain about the size of it again, I promise.
I check my phone again and then my bag to make sure nothing is damaged – or even more damaged than it was before I fell. Everything seems to be OK, and despite feeling a bit achy and a lot embarrassed, I think I’m OK too. The only things that suffered are the coffees – the poor coffees! It breaks my heart watching cars driving over the empty cups in the middle of the road.
‘Right, are you OK?’ the gorgeous stranger asks when he returns. ‘I feel like such a dickhead. I was in a bit of a rush, I completely knocked you off your feet.’
Ah, so that’s what happened.
‘No harm done. I’m fine,’ I assure him, although part of me is thinking I should be a bit pissed off – but who could be mad at that silky black hair and those perfect teeth? To be honest, I just want to get another coffee (for medicinal purposes) and get to work.
‘I feel terrible. Can I replace your drinks? It’s the least I can do. I’m Tom by the way.’ He offers me his hand for the second time, this time for me to shake.
‘I’m Nicole, nice to meet you. I think,’ I reply as I shake his hand. He has a tight, manly grip and I’m certain I’m blushing right now.
‘Nice to meet you too, Nicole. Let’s get those drinks.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine, I—’
‘Please?’ Tom flashes a smile that I can’t bring myself to say no to and so I give in, but not before he gets down on one knee and delicately places my shoe back on my foot. If the smile didn’t have me saying yes, then the Cinderella moment sealed the deal.
Soon enough I’m in Starbucks, again, only this time it’s much busier and we’re forced to wait for our order. We chat for a few minutes and it turns out that Tom works for a firm of solicitors not far from where I work and, despite the fact that he practically assaulted me, and the fact we’ve only known each other for about twenty minutes, we’re getting on really well.
As soon as the drinks are ready, we walk back towards our offices. This is the second longest time it has ever taken me to walk the short journey from my flat to where I work. My record was set a couple of months ago when I spied a sale at one of my favourite shops, or a ‘dental emergency’ as I explained it to my colleagues, bursting through the doors several hours late with lots of suspicious-looking carrier bags.
‘This is me,’ I say as we arrive at the revolving doors that lead to my office. ‘I’m sure I can handle it from here.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ He smiles that smile again. ‘I know this must seem a bit weird considering the circumstances, but I’d really like to see you again. I’ve already swept you off your feet.’
That’s the kind of cheesiness that would normally make me sick all over a man’s shoes, but being so gorgeous, even a line as lame as that sounds utterly charming as it leaves his lips.
‘Erm, knocked me off my feet,’ I correct him, and he laughs.
‘I’ll give you my card, give me a call if you want to go for a drink sometime.’
After thanking him again, I take the card and say goodbye. As soon as I am in the building and out of Tom’s line of sight, I toss the card into the nearest bin, because there’s no way I’m going to call him. Yes, he’s good-looking, charming, funny and has a really good job, but that’s just not my type. He may be any normal/sane girl’s type, but I’ve never been that normal. Or sane.
Anyway, I’m late for work. Better get a move on.
Chapter Two (#u95ef1697-1393-55bc-82f8-9d1e7cd65c99)
The Rebel
My name is Nicole Wilde, and I don’t live in the ‘real world’. Well, that’s what my Great-aunt Dorothy is always telling me. Maybe she’s right. I guess I am kind of lucky with the way things have worked out.
As tacky as it sounds, I have always wanted to be a celebrity. When I was a little girl, as shy as I was, I wanted to be an actress, a singer, a dancer or a musician, and I tried my hand at each one – it turns out I was crap at all of them. My singing voice wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t amazing either, acting gave me the giggles, trying to make my hands do different things at the same times just wouldn’t happen no matter which instrument I tried to learn and as for dancing, well that’s pretty much just exercise, and who wants to do that for a living?
Fast forward a few years to my mid-teens. I rebelled. Black nails and make-up, rainbow-coloured hair, fishnet tights and ‘fuck my life’ T-shirts – that was me. However, like any scary-on-the-outside, good-girl-on-the-inside teenage faux rebel, music was my life. I might not have been able to make it, but I could certainly surround myself with it. No more of the cheesy 90s pop that I loved growing up, instead I started listening to proper bands that played proper instruments.
I would go to the local venue a few times a week and check out unsigned bands from all over the country, stopping by the quiet little Yorkshire town where I grew up just to have another leg of their little self-funded tours.
I would watch the bands and then hang out chatting afterwards, and hitting it off with the musicians was just something that came easily to me. Maybe this was down to the fact that – as my Great-Aunt Dot put it – my grungy, punky outfits were ‘suggestive’ and gave off ‘the wrong impression’, but I think it probably had more to do with the fact that we shared a love of music.
Hanging around with these unknown musicians gave me a taste for the music industry (and a passion for band boys) so I started following big name bands around, doing anything and everything to meet them, have my photo taken with them and ask them to sign my CD/T-shirt/body part. This only increased my desire to be famous and to surround myself with famous people – it was a case of befriending the unsigned bands, sitting back and waiting to see if any of them ‘made it’. Of all the friends I made back in those days, some quit their bands, cut their hair and got real jobs but others stuck with it – one of the bands I know is actually getting pretty big at the moment which is very exciting.
By the time I was eighteen, I was tagging along on tours – low budget, of course – sleeping in the back of vans and converted old buses. I’m not even embarrassed to say it, but by the time I’d finished school, unlike most of my other friends, I didn’t want to get a job or a house or a husband – I just wanted to have fun. So, after my A-levels I took a gap year and became a professional hanger-on and I just loved it. I also ditched the scary teen rebel look, trading in my brightly coloured ’do for sexy blonde highlights, and that’s when I became a slave to fashion, rather than dressing like an actual sex slave.
Sadly, everyone has to go home sometime, and one day I arrived at my parents’ house to find my mum and dad waiting for me, armed with a question: what are you going to do with your life? The truth was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I decided to go to university – because, as bad as it sounds, that would buy me three more years of messing around. I wasn’t some ambitious teen, packing my bags for uni with big dreams of becoming an architect or an artist or an astronaut, so the selection process was a little random. I decided to do journalism, because it sounded glamorous and could potentially involve celebrities. It turned out to be the best decision I have ever made because during my third year I got to go to ByteBanter for my work experience. To this day I don’t fully understand what the heck they do – they’re some kind of techy news website – but I enjoyed my time there and I really clicked with the editor, Eric Tucker, or ET as he’s known around the office. When I turned up on my first day it was like being transported to the future – or teleported to the future, as ET corrected me when I said this out loud. Everything was chrome and black leather, there were all kinds of machines making lots of noise, lights flickering like crazy and the desks were just a mass of gadgets – I had entered geek world, and it was everything I thought it would be. The first thing I noticed was that there weren’t any female employees. I remember asking ET if any women worked there and he replied: ‘most of these guys haven’t ever spoken to a girl, let alone worked with one’.
They might not have realised it, but a lot of the guys working there were accidentally cool. They were rocking the geek-chic look – you know the one, braces, thick-framed glasses, bow ties – I’m fairly certain that if they walked into a branch of Topman, they would blend right in, not that any of them would ever go near Topman.
Most of them wouldn’t talk to me at first but some were friendly. They didn’t make me feel stupid for not understanding HTML or JavaScript (which, sadly, has nothing to do with coffee) and they could have easily put me in a corner sharpening pencils (I made a joke about this at the time, they don’t have pencils) but they didn’t. Instead they gave me things to write about like iPods and music download services and, unsurprisingly, I managed to write about my favourite thing: bands. To make a very long story very short, at the end of my time there ET was so impressed, and so happy that almost all of the office had at least spoken to a member of the opposite sex, that he offered me a job, starting as soon as I’d finished my degree. I didn’t think he meant it, but as soon as I graduated I gave him a call on the off-chance and, just like he said he would, he set me up with my own little department. Two rooms of their huge office were assigned to my project – a main office for my team and a little private office for me. The ByteBanter guys would build and maintain an online magazine for me, but I was in charge of everything else.
If the ByteBanter office was futuristic, the rooms they gave me to use were practically prehistoric. The decor reminded me of a film noir detective office – old wooden desks, proper filing cabinets, frosted glass on the doors and even a coat stand. Anything that wasn’t actually made of wood was a similar colour.
I managed to poach Jake – my favourite member of the ByteBanter team – to come and do the day-to-day techy stuff for me and recruited my best friend from uni, Emily, to help me with the writing and there you have it, that’s how I became editor of Starstruck, an online magazine.
Chapter Three (#ulink_ce326a41-13e0-50aa-8e40-f055c88e332e)
The Devil, The Succubus and The Rockstar
Pushing my way arse first through the ByteBanter double doors, I dodge my way through the desks to where my office is, saying my good mornings to the nerdy guys as I pass through – although I think that ship has sailed now.
I have a go at opening the Starstruck door with my forehead, with no luck, but thankfully someone at a nearby desk notices and helps me out.
‘I’m here, I’m here,’ I chant victoriously as I arrive with the new coffees intact.
‘Well, look what the cat dragged in!’ Emily teases.
‘I’m late, I know, but you wouldn’t believe what happened on the way over here,’ I begin to explain, handing out the drinks.
‘What could have possibly happened that would make the ten-minute walk from your flat to here take two hours? And is this a skinny latte?’ Vicky asks rather rudely, and yes, I am technically her boss.
I ignore her question about my lateness, but as for the latte – what is the right answer? I’m so not in the mood today. It took me two attempts to get her that damn coffee and if she doesn’t drink it she will end up wearing it.
‘No?’ I reply, although it sounds more like a question than an answer.
‘Excellent!’ She snatches it from me without the same thank-you that I received from Emily and Jake.
‘You know what they say, Nicole,’ Vicky persists, ‘the early bird catches the worm.’
‘Ah, but the second mouse gets the cheese,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, but it’s covered in dead mouse,’ she says, looking and sounding thoroughly disgusted that I’d suggest such a thing.
Vicky Mason is the newest member of the Starstruck team. She is an aspiring journalist with a BTEC in Photography, desperate to break into the world of music journalism. Emily met her at a gig she was reviewing and I guess Vicky just latched on to her. She didn’t have a job, and we didn’t have a proper photographer, so after a lot of persuasion from Em I agreed to take Vicky on. Oh, how I have come to regret that decision now; the girl is impossible to get along with. She’s bossy, she’s rude and she is so argumentative.
Emily gets on with her and Jake gets on with anyone, but Vicky and I just clash in every way imaginable.
She’s an averagely talented photographer – much better now that I’m constantly splashing out on new kit for her to use. Personally, I think she would be much more at home trying to trick drunk celebrities into flashing their underwear outside nightclubs so that she can snap some photos and sell them to the tabloids for a big chunk of cash.
I have lovingly dubbed her Succubus (a name I only use behind her back, obviously) because the first time she went to a gig with me and Emily, we ended up back at the hotel with the band and Vicky got in bed with the bassist while he was sleeping.
I tell them the story about my encounter with Tom, hoping they might think my fall had more to do with me being late than my hangover.
‘He gave you his business card?’ Jake chuckles. ‘Did you say his name was Patrick Bateman? You know, he liked blondes.’
‘Very funny,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Now hadn’t you better get back to playing The Sims or updating your MySpace profile or whatever it is you do on there when you’re pretending to work.’
I have a great friendship with Jake. He teases me about being a groupie, I tease him about a nerd. We are about as opposite as two people can be, but we get on like a house on fire.
‘Nic, can I see you in your office, please?’ Emily asks. She sounds serious, but her face isn’t giving anything away.
My first reaction is to panic – on the inside though, I’m not going to let Vicky enjoy my potential misery. I grab my caramel macchiato – I can’t hear bad news without caffeine in me – and make my way into my little office. I close the door behind us, just as Jake starts singing the chorus of Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ in an attempt to tease me. He’s spending way too much time around me if he’s learning the lyrics to songs like that, I almost feel sorry for him.
‘Right, hit me with it, get it over with,’ I babble. I’ve never been great at receiving bad news.
A smile spreads across my friend’s face.
‘It’s good news. I was going through the emails...’ Emily pauses for dramatic effect.
‘Spit it out, woman!’ I demand, unable to wait a second longer.
‘We’ve had an email from Plastic Rap’s manager, you’re interviewing them tonight!’ she tells me with an extra-loud squeal.
‘No way! We managed to blag an interview? How? I thought they were all booked up.’
‘They had some journo drop out at the last minute, there’s a slot going free. It’s after the show though, so late. Do I confirm?’
‘Erm, yeah! You’re coming with me, right?’
‘Can’t. It’s my mum’s birthday party tonight,’ she reminds me and I can see how disappointed she is. ‘He said in the email that he could supply us with photos, so you don’t even have to take Vicky if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I whisper with a cheeky smile on my face.
‘I am so jealous. You never know, one of the Plastic Rap boys might fall madly in love with you. You could get married and your groupie days would be over. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about getting up for work on a morning – I told you that you’d be late today,’ she teases.
‘Oi, who are you calling a groupie? And when did you tell me that I’d be late today?’
‘Last night...’ she prompts, and I cast my mind back. Em and I went to a gig last night and then partied with the bands until the early hours – let’s just say things got messy. She’s right though, I remember the taxi dropping me off, drunkenly fidgeting with my door key, thinking it was the funniest thing ever, and Emily yelling something out of the taxi window about how I’d be late for work as she was driven off. A guilty smile spreads across my face.
‘And don’t think I didn’t see you snogging the face off Troy Reeves, Miss Wilde,’ she adds.
Troy was on one of those terrible reality TV talent show things. He didn’t win, but when I interviewed him he told me that he was glad because he could make music without a super-strict recording contract holding him back – he also told me he wanted to sleep with me and we’ve been getting together whenever he’s in town ever since.
‘So how come you didn’t go back with him last night?’ Emily asks.
‘I’m a lady!’ I protest, trying to give off Kate Middleton vibes but actually sounding more like David Walliams in Little Britain.
Emily gives me a look.
‘He had to go,’ I admit. ‘They were travelling through the night.’
‘You’re so bad, Nicole.’
‘The devil made me do it, now get out of my office, bitch.’ I laugh, totally defeated.
‘Gosh, Troy Reeves last night, Prince Charming today – it’s true what they say about men being like buses, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, they’re dirty, anyone can ride them and they’re never there when you want one.’
Emily, a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, rolls her eyes at this.
Plastic Rap are one of the biggest bands around at the moment. They’re mainly aimed at the teen market, but loved by young girls and mums alike. Even a few boys admit to liking them these days. At the moment they are touring the UK, and when tickets went on sale all venues sold out within a couple of hours. I managed to score a place on the guest list months ago, but all their publicity time was booked up. As far as their music goes, they’re not really my cup of tea, but this interview will be good for hits.
‘Get some work done,’ Emily says, leaving me alone in my office and closing the door behind her. There are only a handful of reasons why my office door is ever closed. 1. When Vicky is driving me especially crazy. 2. When I am in on my own, and therefore scared something might ‘get me’. 3. When I actually need to do some work. Despite today being a three, I have Googled Plastic Rap and now I’m casually clicking my way through their photos and mentally placing them in order of hotness. This takes up about ten minutes that I don’t have and I manage to burn another five flicking through the photos from last night on my phone. It certainly was a wild one.
Now officially in the p.m., I click open my emails. The first one I open is from Dylan King. Subject: Escort girl.
I quickly scan through the email which informs me Dylan is ‘sixty-seven percent certain’ he didn’t pay some girl for sex, although he is ‘eighty-five percent certain’ he did ‘bang her’. The percentages make me laugh but somehow I don’t think they were meant to.
Dylan is a mega-star, so stories are forever popping up in the press about him sleeping with some girl – and most of the time he has slept with them, in fact, I’m ninety-nine per cent certain.
As well as being a super-famous rockstar, he is also my best friend. I met him on my gap year when I won a competition to meet his band, The Burnouts. Back then the bands I hung around with were small-time, so it was pretty cool to meet one of the most famous bands in the country and get to hang out backstage.
I remember their manager came out to get me and as we were walking backstage he said: ‘They’re going to love you, darling.’ Back then I wasn’t the expert that I am now when it comes to bands, in particular the inner (and outer) workings of your typical band member, so I weakly asked him what he meant. ‘Blonde hair, big tits. You’re just Dylan’s type, you want to watch yourself with him,’ he warned me, making me even more nervous than I already was.
When I was shown into the backstage room, it was Mikey King, Dylan’s younger brother who is also in the band, who I was introduced to first and he was lovely. Dylan was always the one I’d had the crush on, but Mikey was just so down-to-earth and charming. It’s no secret that Mikey is the real talent in The Burnouts, he’s the guitarist and he writes most of the music, whereas Dylan is the egotistical front-man with the pretty face and the shocking reputation. After I’d chatted to Mikey for a while, Dylan came in and he was everything people had warned me about. His ego was in full swing and I could tell he was going out of his way to try and impress me – he even played me an exclusive clip of their next single. Until that moment, everything I had known about bands I had loved, but being around this mega-famous arsehole was really starting to get on my nerves, so when he played me their new song, despite it being amazing, I told him it was crap – because that ought to bring him down a peg or two. Of course I instantly regretted saying it, but after a few seconds of straight-faced silence he burst out laughing.
‘I think you’re the only person in the world brave enough to say something like that to me,’ he chuckled and apparently the kind of person who will tell you your music is crap is exactly the kind of person you want to have in your life if you’re a musician and we became pretty much inseparable. We’ve been best friends ever since – although nothing more, I hasten to add. This works well for both of us professionally because if I am having a slow week with news he will give me an interview, and he can always rely on me to give him a bit of good press when everyone is reporting the negative stuff – like him ‘banging’ a female escort, for example.
With me living in Leeds and him all the way down in London, we don’t see each other as much as we’d like, but we talk almost every day and we always have a blast when he is on tour.
My mind darts back to the ‘real world’. Sitting at my desk and staring at my computer, I realise that I’m not going to be able to concentrate today, I’m just too excited. I go through the rest of my emails, clicking my way through the masses of press releases we receive every day. There are a few good ones but nothing too exciting, I’ll do them later.
One exciting email I have received is from a tour manager, asking to me to confirm that I will be joining a band on their tour. These guys are also my good friends; I used to tour with them when no one knew who they were, and now they’re embarking on their first headlining UK tour as a signed band, which is pretty exciting. I send a quick message (something which feels weirdly formal considering they’re my buddies) confirming that I will still be joining them on the road and then crack on with my work.
After four hours of replying to messages and writing items for the website, I am more than ready to go home. In what little time I have, I’m going to pull out all the stops for tonight. I only wish I had time to pick up something new to wear.
‘Don’t mind if I get off a bit earlier, do you, team? Big night tonight,’ I say, making my way towards the door.
‘Last one in, first one out,’ Jake jokes. ‘Lucky for some.’
‘Of course we don’t mind. If you do pull one of them, be sure to text me,’ Emily says excitedly. I think she may be even more excited than I am.
‘I don’t think so,’ I call back as I make my escape. It’s not that they are a bad-looking band, but my priority is the interview and I’m certainly not going to mess this up by getting my goals confused.
Chapter Four (#ulink_c47d6bae-fa0f-5eff-a166-f73b29583d4c)
The Secret
I feel so old right now, and I’m only twenty-five. I’m at the Plastic Rap gig and, apart from a handful of parents and their young kids, I am surrounded by excited teenagers, most of them female. Unsurprisingly I haven’t bumped into anyone I know, so I have been entertaining myself. I’ve knocked back a few drinks and messed around on my phone quite a lot. It’s very important to keep the good people of Twitter and Facebook up to date on what I’m doing – not to show off, I promise.
Plastic Rap are currently playing their last song and for the millionth time since I got here I am checking my bag for my Dictaphone. Absolutely nothing can go wrong tonight.
Looking up at them on stage, I have to admit that I can see exactly what the thousands of screaming girls see in them. They’re good-looking in a goody-goody pop kind of way, not a tattoo or piercing in sight, which is something I actually quite like; it’s not that often you find a musician without one or the other these days.
When the gig is finally over, I make my way to the hotel next door where our interview is taking place. Before I know it, I am plonked down in front of the band, who are eagerly awaiting my questions.
All five of them are so chatty, they’ve got bags of character and they’re definitely saying all the right things.
Sometimes the really famous ones are rude or awkward and I hate it when there’s a particular subject I’m not allowed to ask about, but that’s not the case with these guys.
I’ve asked all the music-related questions that we’re expected to ask, so it’s time to get down to the juicy stuff.
‘So, are you boys allowed girlfriends? A lot of bands with large teenage fan-bases are told to keep their girlfriends a secret.’
Sam (the hottest one in my opinion) is straight in there with an answer.
‘Yes, we’re allowed girlfriends and we all have a girlfriend at the moment. Our fans are the most loyal fans in the world, they certainly don’t mind us having them. It’s all about the music.’
Fantastic answer, although I have to disagree. It’s partly about the music, but their fans are genuinely in love with them. Hearts will break when they read this, that’s for sure.
Eventually we wrap up the interview. I pose for a few photos with the band and I’m not going to lie, these are for Facebook. I’m still a band lover at the end of the day.
Sam moves to stand next to me and slides an arm around my waist as we continue to pose for the camera.
‘We’re having a bit of a party if you’d like to stick around,’ he says between smiles. Before I have chance to reply, in walks the band’s tour manager with a group of ten young-looking fans. They’re maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, so I assume they’re here for a meet and greet before the party starts. For someone who has been hanging around bands for so long, that’s a pretty naive assumption it turns out. As if to remind me exactly how these things go, Carl the bassist walks straight up to one of the fans and sticks his tongue down her throat. Maybe it’s his girlfriend? Sure she looks a bit young, but who am I to jump to conclusions? Then again, if it was his girlfriend he probably wouldn’t be kissing the next girl in the line right now. Or the one after that.
Now I really do feel old. When I was sixteen I certainly wasn’t hanging around in hotels with taken men.
‘Thanks for the offer, but some of us have got work in the morning.’ I try to sound friendly, jokey, anything but shocked and appalled.
‘I’ll give you my number, yeah?’ He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. ‘We’re back here again in a few weeks, we’ll have to meet up, babe.’
This is the second phone number I have been given today that I have no intention of calling – unless we ever need another interview, of course.
As I gather my things and walk towards the door, I take one final look back at the band, just as they are working out which band member gets which girls. Ten girls – that’s two each. It reminds me of when we used to pick teams during PE at school. I bet a couple of those girls still have to do PE, how creepy is that?
The band’s chubby, bald tour manager stops me on the way out to ask a few questions about the magazine so I answer and politely thank him for his time. As I go for the door, he puts his arm up like a barrier blocking an exit.
‘These girls are all over sixteen, so don’t go putting this in your magazine,’ he warns me – protesting a little too much if you ask me.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I reply bluntly, waiting for him to move so I can pass him. Eventually he does, but not without trying to intimidate me a little. I can’t wait to tell Emily about this, in fact I’m actually dialling her number before I’ve even left the building. It doesn’t take me long to relay the night’s events to her as I walk home.
‘I cannot believe it!’ she squeals.
‘I know, right? No wonder their fans don’t mind them having girlfriends, it really, really doesn’t matter.’
‘Well yeah, that is shocking, but I can’t believe you didn’t stay. You were in there, Nic!’
‘No way! You’d have stayed? Those girls were the same age as your little sister. God, I felt like a prudish old woman.’
‘It would have been quite the scoop for the magazine though, wouldn’t it?’ she says cannily, but I know she doesn’t really mean it. She’s right, but not only did I promise their tour manager that I wouldn’t blab, I don’t really want to be pissing off a band that I will probably want to interview again in the future. They may not be very nice guys, but they pull the hits and that’s what I need.
‘We need to keep our heads down, Em. Trying to ruin the reputation of a huge band like Plastic Rap would probably just get us sued. Right, I’m at my door. I trust we’ll be keeping this little discovery between us?’
‘Say no more. See you in the morning and try not to be late, yeah?’
Cheeky bitch. Then again, I am always late.
Chapter Five (#ulink_1c33fda5-3003-5b36-91d4-47783ae91d97)
The Indecent Proposal
It’s good to be home, and I’m so glad I escaped the teeny orgy as I much prefer my own bed, and I don’t get on that well with kids. The kettle goes on and so does my laptop because, as soon as I get some caffeine in my system, I’m going to make a start transcribing tonight’s interview. I’m very much a night person which is proving really inconvenient because people expect me to wake up in the a.m..
Kicking off my shoes and abandoning my gig outfit in the middle of my living room, I wander around in my underwear until I eventually find my dressing gown which, for some reason, is plonked on top of the cooker. It doesn’t really matter because my cooker is super-clean – not because I am a domestic goddess but because I never, ever use it. Living in the city centre, there is a restaurant or a takeaway everywhere you look – who needs to know how to cook these days?
My butt finally hits the sofa at 1 a.m. I know I’ve got to be up in seven hours (five and a half if I want to wash my hair, which I probably should because I have post-gig frizz going on), so maybe I won’t be typing up the interview tonight after all.
I’m just about to shut down when a message from Luke Fox pops up on Skype. Just seeing his name makes me go all weird and, at twenty-five years of age, I still feel like a lovesick schoolgirl whenever I see him.
Luke is, you’ve guessed it, in a band and I have had a crush on him pretty much since the day we met. Unfortunately he is a bit of a tart, so despite our flirty banter I have mostly just stood back and watched him sleep with anything female that crossed his path.
It was Luke’s band, Two For The Road, that I used to tour with in my teens and now they’re a proper signed band in the middle of their first headlining UK tour – this is the band that I’ll be doing a few tour dates with later this week. I’m making out like it’s a magazine feature – and it will be going in the mag – but, to be honest, I have been on every tour with these guys since we met, I’m not about to stop now they’ve hit the big time. It’s amazing how things have changed. I used to sleep in the back of their van, now they’re being driven around in a huge tour bus.
Touring can really take its toll on your body. I’ve developed tinnitus from all the loud music (it turns out your ears need protection too, something I learned a little too late) and tendon damage from a particularly high pair of heels that I wore for too many days in a row, and while thankfully I’ve managed to protect myself from the cocktail of sexually transmitted diseases that I know several of my band friends have dipped their straws into, my priority has always been to protect my heart – no, I’m not talking about exercising on a regular basis and taking aspirin, I’m talking about not getting too involved with the boys. With Luke, this has always been a struggle.
It would be the biggest understatement of the century to say that I have a slight crush on him – I am crazy for him. I haven’t wanted to be anybody’s girlfriend since Robbie Williams ripped off his clothes (and then his skin) in the ‘Rock DJ’ music video back in 2000, but I could quite easily believe in monogamy for this man – something which troubles me because I’m not a commitment kind of girl and he certainly isn’t a commitment kind of boy.
He’s tall without being lanky, his dark hair is effortlessly perfect with his fringe falling over his gorgeous brown eyes and he always seems to smells so nice, even when he’s all sweaty after a show – see what I mean, I sound like a fifteen-year-old girl. The bottom line is that he is gorgeous, but I’m not the only one who thinks so. He has an even bigger female following since hitting the big time and I can’t compete with semi-naked, drunk chicks that operate as a team.
Luke: Nicole?
As the message pops up on my screen, the butterflies in my stomach start fluttering like crazy, it’s ridiculous. When we see each other at gigs, we get on so well and we flirt constantly but that’s just the way he is. He definitely doesn’t know about my little crush on him. It would be stupid of me to interpret his flirting as real feelings because he’s such a ladies’ man and a total charmer. He’s the kind of guy your mother would warn you about and your father would want to kill – actually, he could probably charm your mum too.
After what feels like several minutes of panicky excitement, I manage to compose myself enough to type a reply. He tells me that he is currently sat in a hotel room, all alone and bored out of his mind. After we get past the hello-how-are-you stuff, things start to get interesting.
Luke: No party tonight. This is not what I signed up for.
Nicole: Well I’ll be with you in a few days, and I’ll make sure we have a messy one.
Luke: Looking forward to it. Are you seeing anyone at the moment?
Am I seeing anyone at the moment? That’s a laugh. The truth is that it’s been years since I had an actual boyfriend. It’s not that I’m lacking male attention, far from it, but my type happens to be musicians.
When you’re on the road, all relationships are short, even friendships. You take ‘relationships’ where you can find them and they require about as much commitment as a pet rock. Having a guy ask you to be his girlfriend in the ‘real world’ is the equivalent of a band boy actually remembering your surname. But that’s the way I like it. The sad truth is that I’d rather have two nights with a rockstar than two years with your average bloke.
The fact that Luke is even enquiring about my love life is enough to make my heart race.
Nicole: Nope. Are you?
Luke: No, I’m single too.
I knew that. Luke totally subscribes to the musician way of life and a girlfriend would only cramp his style. Before I have chance to worry about what to say in response, Luke sends me another message.
Luke: Can I ask you something?
Nicole: Sure.
I’m trying to sound cool, like I’m not really bothered what he says next – I am though. This is so high school, I cannot believe that I am still playing these games.
Luke: You know that I fancy you, don’t you?
If I’m being honest, I’m waiting for the punch-line.
My first guess is that it isn’t Luke at all. It could be Eddie, the TFTR front-man, messing with me. Or maybe it is Luke, but he’s drunk. Then again, if he’s drunk how come his typing is so accurate? And Eddie being sober, or alone, at this time of night after a gig is about as probable as me using my cooker for something other than storage.
Nicole: You fancy everyone, ha-ha!
Luke: No, I really fancy you.
If this isn’t a joke then I am gobsmacked. I’ll have to reply with something or he’ll think he’s scared me away. Not only is this guy my crush, but he’s a proper celebrity these days. He might not be a super-star like Dylan, and TFTR aren’t as big as Plastic Rap yet, but he’s big enough to have an album in the impressive end of the Top Forty at the moment.
Nicole: Is this really you?
Better to ask than to make a total tit of myself and have the rest of the band tease me about it for the rest of time.
Luke: Of course it’s me. You don’t believe me?
Nicole: Are you drunk?
Luke: Yes, but that’s not why I’m telling you. I can’t get you out of my head, especially when I’m alone on the bus ;-).
He’s taking a bit of a risk with our friendship here, but he is a musician. He oozes confidence and probably thinks every girl in the world finds him attractive – then again, they probably do. Luke can easily get away with hitting on his female friends and using tacky emoticons in his messages.
Luke: Am I making things awkward? I’m sorry.
Nicole: You’re not making thinks awkward, don’t worry.
Luke: We flirt all the time, why do you seem so surprised?
Nicole: Again, because you flirt with everyone!
Luke: Wait until I see you, we’ll talk in person and then you’ll know that I mean what I say.
I agree before changing the subject from Luke’s declaration of lust and we carry on chatting for a while. Before I know it, it’s nearly 3 a.m., which means I should definitely be in my bed by now. I don’t want to go, but I don’t want to be late for work again either. I am both relieved and devastated when Luke says that he had better get some sleep, so we finish the conversation by saying that we’ll see each other on tour in a couple of days.
Finally climbing in my bed, I rest my head on the pillow and try to get some much-needed sleep. My conversation with Luke is replaying in my head and I can’t help but wonder how things are going to play out when I see him.
I’m so going to be late for work in the morning.
Chapter Six (#ulink_05dcb0fa-5e69-54bf-af53-2f356457b694)
The Fan-bang
Despite the exciting events last night, not only am I at work on time but I am also the first one to arrive.
I am in a fantastic mood today and my work is reaping the benefits. In fact, I am so busy flying through the emails that I don’t even hear Jake arrive. I’m surprised I couldn’t smell the coffee as he was coming up in the lift.
He makes me jump by dropping a copy of the Daily Scoop newspaper on the desk in front of me. Plastic Rap are on the cover accompanied by the headline: ‘We’re having a fan-bang’. Not only am I amazed by the speed these tabloids operate at, but I’d give anything to have been the person who came up with that pun.
‘Oh my God...’
‘I take it you left before this went on?’ Jake enquires.
‘I did. Minutes before, actually.’
‘You’re probably too old for them,’ he jokes.
‘Oi, you! Sam gave me his number if you must know.’
‘For what exactly? In case he needs a babysitter?’
Jake is so funny. He’s not really that into the kind of music we write about, but he is so good at his job and he keeps us all in stitches while we’re working.
I take a long, unladylike swig of my coffee and grab the paper to have a proper read.
It doesn’t say who their source is, but they must have been at the hotel last night because they saw exactly what I saw. I can’t believe this has made the front page.
I read the article out loud as Emily and Vicky arrive together.
‘Plastic Rap, the squeaky-clean teen sensation, are proving to be just as artificial as their name. There has never been any scandal in the press about band members Sam, Carl, Mike, John and Simon, all aged between twenty and twenty-two...until now, that is.’ Looking up to make sure that I have Emily and Vicky’s attention, I carry on reading: ‘At a gig in Leeds last night, the band members sent one of their people out into the crowd to bring them back a couple of fans each. Our spy estimated the age of the fans to be ‘about fifteen or sixteen’. The band, who market themselves as being teen-friendly, should know better – these girls probably had school in the morning.’
I’ve read enough. I wonder who leaked the story to the press – it certainly wasn’t me, I was far too preoccupied last night, but I don’t remember seeing anyone else in the room. It must have been one of the fans, maybe one of them realised how wrong it was and decided to tell the press. Well, good for her – whoever she was – and she didn’t even give her name so she’s clearly not just after the fame. Poor Em has a concerned look on her face, I didn’t realise she was so appalled by the story when I told her about it last night.
‘Nicole, I’m going to go pick the new camera up. I’ve had a message to say that it’s ready,’ Jake informs me, before turning to Vicky and asking her if she wants to go with him – it is for her after all. Vicky jumps out of her chair and heads to the door. She doesn’t even say goodbye to us, the girl is that rude. I’m just glad to get her out of the way so that I can talk to Emily properly about the headline and about Luke.
‘I saw that paper on the way to work this morning, I thought maybe you’d tipped them off,’ she says as soon as we’re alone.
‘Come on, Emily. You know me better than that. As if I’d give trash like the Scoopmy story. Anyway, forget that, I have something far more interesting to tell you.’
I tell her everything about my conversation with Luke. She already knows how much I fancy him, but she doesn’t seem that pleased for me.
‘Oh,’ is her response.
‘Oh?’
‘Well, he’s not the kind of guy you really want to be with is he, Nic? Can you imagine being married to someone like that?’
‘Bloody hell, Em! I’m not planning on marrying the guy!’
‘Well what about those rumours that he is always off his face on drugs since the band hit the big time?’ she quizzes me.
‘Who knows if there’s any truth in that? And like it matters. Like I said, we’re hardly planning our wedding.’
I’m slightly annoyed that I’m having to justify myself to her, her love life is just as chaotic as mine, if not more so. I may go for the band boys, but Em goes for the bad eggs out there in the ‘real world’. Anyway, I’ve never seen any of the boys touch anything other than a bit of weed now and then on the bus (not that I approve) – certainly not the hard stuff like you read in the gossip columns. The press are just trying to trash the hottest new band on the scene, simply because they can.
‘In that case I’m very happy for you,’ Emily says with a smile that I’m not entirely convinced is genuine.
‘Yeah, well don’t go hat shopping just yet, will you?’ I joke, but things are suddenly a bit awkward.
I’m touched by her concern but, like I said, I’m not planning on marrying him, and she doesn’t usually care about the moral character of the band boys I ‘get involved’ with. He’s my big crush, can’t I just enjoy this moment?
‘I’ve got Vicky living with me, as of last night,’ Emily blurts out.
Now I’m shocked. ‘Why?’
‘She had a huge fall-out with her mum and she turned up at my mum’s party with her bags – what was I supposed to do?’
I don’t know what expression is currently occupying my face, but it must be bad because Emily reacts to it straight away.
‘I know you’re not keen on her, but she’s a nice girl and it’s only temporary.’
‘You’re too nice, Emily Adams. Don’t let her take advantage.’
Our conversation is cut short by my mobile ringing. It’s Dylan King so I take it in my office.
‘Hello, rockstar, how are you?’
‘Fucked,’ he replies.
‘What’s the matter?’ I do worry about him, he’s such a good friend to me and he gets such a hard time from the press for getting drunk and hooking up with girls. In a weird way I’m quite proud to be female and his friend, rather than just another one of his conquests. He has a hard time trusting girls, so it’s nice to be so special to him.
‘To summarise,’ he starts, sounding more serious than I have ever heard him sound in his life, ‘I’ve knocked up some girl, about seven months ago apparently. She’s having twins – fucking twins, Nicole. It’s going to come out sooner or later, she’s saying she’ll go to the press. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘First of all, calm down. I don’t want to be rude, but are you certain it was you who...knocked her up?’ I ask, using his words. ‘You’ve been, erm, seeing a few girls this past year and not the most committed kind...’ I trail off, hoping he’ll catch my drift. My point is that he’s shagged a lot of random girls. Random girls who have probably shagged a lot of random guys too.
‘The timing is right,’ he says before a long pause. ‘And there’s a video.’
‘A video? Bloody hell, Dylan, when those kids ask you where they came from, you’re going to be able to give them one hell of an answer.’
He laughs, but he sound worried sick. I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. I love Dylan to bits, but he really puts it about and he drinks a lot, which we all know is a recipe for disaster. I think he’s been really lucky to not have this happen on a weekly basis. Even so, I feel sorry for him.
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘I’ve got a meeting with a guy this afternoon, some publicity crisis specialist who’s going to work it all out for me, I’ve just got to keep quiet about it until then.’
‘Good luck, babe. Try not to worry, OK?’ I know it’s easier said than done, but what do you say to a friend who has accidentally knocked up a girl he hardly knows? And with a video souvenir too. Hallmark certainly don’t make a card for it.
All around me glamorous, rich and famous folks’ lives are going down the pan and at the same time mine is getting better and better. It’s true what they say, money and fame don’t make you happy. When I think about the scandal with Plastic Rap and their young fans, and now Dylan and his pregnant one-night stand, it makes me really glad that I’m not famous. I do stupid things all the time, but luckily no one cares enough for a newspaper to want to write about it.
I try to put myself in Dylan’s shoes, but I just cannot imagine how it would feel to have everyone knowing every little detail about you, for your parents to see the details of your sex life on the front page of a newspaper along with the rest of the world – your dentist, the people you went to school with, the guy who serves you in Starbucks. Some of the things I’ve read about Dylan, true or otherwise, have been so embarrassing, I just can’t imagine the entire country knowing the dirty little details of my life and me feeling comfortable carrying on as if nothing were any different. That’s why I’m glad I became a journalist – no one cares what we do.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_1474ae98-60a5-5f0d-9874-307ad37a5a47)
The Name’s Wilde, Nicole Wilde
I was about fourteen when I went to see my first proper concert and it was mesmerising. I think that’s when my love of the music biz started – I was just so fascinated by all of it.
I remember not long after that, I was hanging around outside the arena in Sheffield with my friends. We would turn up at 10 a.m. and wait for the bands to arrive, just hoping to catch a glimpse. That time in particular we were standing at the temporary metal fence in the huge, empty car park when the bus pulled in. I just stared in amazement as it drove past us. It seemed huge – like the band were travelling around in a hotel on wheels. It’s funny, I’ve been on so many since then that these days they all seem so small to me – tour buses that is, not bands.
Peeping through the fence, I watched them unload the bus. After the roadies had done all the heavy lifting, the doors would open and out strolled the important-looking people like managers and publicists. Then my favourite bit, the band would step off the bus, usually surrounded by girlfriends and friends. I wanted to be one of those people, following them around like a puppy, being the envy of every girl standing around in the car park. Well look at me now, I’m living the dream. Well, almost. Let’s just say things aren’t exactly the way I imagined them to be. I thought it was going to be pure glamour, but the reality of it is rather different. OK, so the five-star hotels are pretty glam, but even the most beautiful hotel room can seem like a shithole when you add a gang of lads who invite thirty of their closest friends for an impromptu party. Without entertainment planned, people will make their own fun and that is when things get messy. There’s nothing glamorous about a luxury bath when it’s nearly full to the top with beer, vomit, piss, fag ends and anything else that happens to be within reach.
I like to think I’m rock and roll, but I remember seeing a huge flat-screen TV taken down off the wall and being promptly thrown off the balcony and into the river that our formerly beautiful room overlooked. The band thought this was hilarious – it was no skin off their noses because their record label would foot the bill – but I’d kill to have a TV like that at my place, it was such a waste.
When I find myself alone in a hotel room I’ll order room service, throw on a fluffy dressing gown and see what the movie channels have to offer. The only things I have ever thrown off a balcony, well technically spat off a balcony, were orange Revels – abominable.
Don’t get me wrong though, I am a party animal. Put me in a hotel room with a bunch of drunk band boys and a few friends and things will always get messy. I’ve thrown up in a bath or two in my time, but that will not be happening on this tour, I’m not going to be able to seduce Luke with vomit.
At the moment I am hurriedly packing my bags so that I don’t miss my train to Manchester. That’s where I’ll be meeting up with Luke’s band, Two For The Road, and joining them on the last week of their tour.
Packing for tour requires two bags. I have a small bag to take to gigs with me – big enough for my phone, purse, camera and make-up – and a huge bag that could rival a suitcase for space. Inside this bag I have successfully crammed enough items of clothing to at least create the illusion that I am wearing a different outfit every day of the tour, my vital grooming items like my hairbrush and the super-important things like my phone charger. I lift it up before I squash in the last few items, just to see if it’s too heavy to carry and it almost certainly is, but I’ll manage.
As I frantically cram the last few things into the two bags, I mentally tick them off my list of things to take with me. Of course, the problem with a mental list is that you have to actually remember the things on it and you can guarantee I will always forget something.
Guess what? I’m running really late. It’s nearly 7 p.m. by the time I am making the short journey from my flat to the train station. I probably should have checked the train times, but I know there is one every half an hour so it should be fine. I really am so disorganised, but I think I secretly enjoy the drama. A few taps on my phone would tell me what time the train is due and what time it arrives in Manchester, but that would be way too easy, and if I start messing around with my phone then I’ll definitely miss my train.
After buying my ticket I check the departures board and learn that not only is my train due to depart in three minutes, but that it is departing from platform sixteen. Just brilliant.
I knew that I’d be running late, so I decided to get ready for the gig before I left home. The downside of this is that I’m freezing in my little dress but on the plus side it will save me loads of time when I get there, and at least I’m wearing my cosy Ugg boots. My pretty shoes are in my bag, I’ll make the swap when I get there.
Running down the steps to platform sixteen I hear the all-too-familiar whistle, the one that means the train doors are about to close and I’m about to miss my train. Before I know what I’m doing, I am diving through the closing doors, landing upright and still holding my things as the doors shut behind me. The train is absolutely packed and all the people standing in the doorway cheer and applaud my James Bond-style manoeuvre. That is probably the most energetic thing I have done in a long time, so I smile and curtsy for my audience before composing myself and trying to find my phone. This is one of those moments in life that is totally Twitter-worthy, in fact I think Twitter was designed with moments like this in mind.
Impressed with myself, I wonder how I managed to move so gracefully with my big bag and, of course, it is then that I realise I have left my big bag at home. This means that I have no clean clothes, no hairbrush and, worst of all, no pretty shoes. Shit. It’s too late to do anything about it now, I’ll just have to try and manage. I’ve survived on low-budget tours, sleeping in the back of dirty old vans and trying to make my face of make-up last for more than one day – I’ll be fine. I’m touring with Two For The Road, they have a big, glamorous tour bus and we’ll be staying in a few hotels. I guess I’ll have to buy some new clothes, but that is hardly an idea I am against.
About an hour later, the train pulls into Manchester Piccadilly station and I hop off far less gracefully than I got on. My friend, Gemma, is stood waiting for me. She’s a huge Two For The Road fan and I remember exactly what it’s like to be a fan, desperate to meet the band, so I told her that if she wanted to come along I would introduce her.
‘Are you excited about tonight?’ I ask.
‘I am so, so nervous. I don’t know how you keep your cool being friends with all these bands! Just promise to introduce me to Eddie.’
She does look nervous, bless her. I remember when I was nervous.
Eddie is the lead singer of TFTR and like every front-man ever, he is gorgeous, charming and as shallow as a puddle.
I resist telling Gemma about Luke – it’s not that I don’t trust her, I’m just worried. What if he acts like we never had that conversation? What if he was just drunk? I am not going to make a fool of myself tonight, although I’m not sure how easy that is going to be as I do plan on getting a little bit drunk.
Finally outside the venue, a big, scary-looking doorman ticks our names off the guest list. I can hear the music from out here, it’s Two For The Road. I told you that I was going to be very late.
Our first stop is the bar and it’s only as we’re ordering our drinks that I realise I am probably just as nervous as Gemma is tonight. It has been such a long time since I felt nervous about meeting a band, and I know these guys so well, but this Luke stuff is having a strange effect on me. I’ve always kept my crush on him under wraps, but now that he might actually fancy me back, everything is different. Oh God, I’m sounding like a schoolgirl again.
Armed with our drinks, we make our way towards the stage where the show is already in full swing. Eddie, the singer, is upfront and smack bang in the middle. He’s very typically good-looking (think Alex Pettyfer, but brunette) and he really knows how to work the crowd. The only time he isn’t surrounded by a crowd of girls is when he’s on stage. He has his shirt fully unbuttoned, like he’s in Whitesnake (circa 1980s) or something, and a guitar hanging off his body which I don’t think I have ever seen him play, that’s Ben’s job. Ben is the lead guitarist, but he’s probably the shyest member of the band. I’m not sure how old he is, but he can’t be more than twenty. He’s a new addition to TFTR (after their original guitarist walked) and hasn’t quite acquired the same level of cockiness as the rest of them, but given time I’m sure he will. Then we have the bassist, Mark. Mark is probably the one I get on with the least because he’s taken that cheeky cockiness that makes Eddie and Luke so likeable and mutated it into full-blown arrogance. Even before they were famous, you could tell he thought he was the shit. He’s never been anything but nice to me though, so I can’t complain, but there is something very unattractive about a man who thinks that he is God’s gift to women. In reality he’s a bit chubbier than the rest of the guys, his short blonde hair always looks like it needs a good wash and I wish he would have a shave – I am not a big fan of beards at the best of times, but his definitely has to go. As I’m staring at him, I catch his eye and he gives me a wink, so I give him a smile in return. Then I look at Luke, he’s sitting behind the drums with his shirt off, sweat literally dripping off him as he bangs away on his kit with real enthusiasm. I get that feeling again, that pang of something in my chest. I think my heart just skipped a beat – how lame is that?
We’ve managed to push our way to the front of the crowd – at Gemma’s request, I’d be happier blending into the background and pretending I’m important. As their song comes to an end, Eddie chats to his audience. I look over at Luke who is downing a bottle of water and the moment he stops drinking, he spots me. Standing up behind his drum kit and grabbing his microphone off the stand, he interrupts Eddie.
‘Nicole Wilde, I see you! Guys, we’ve got a very special lady in tonight, huge shout-out to Nicole from Starstruck. She’s touring with us and we want her to write nice things, so if you see her at the bar then buy her a drink!’ And with that, he returns the mic to its rightful place and sits back down behind his drums.
‘This one is for you, Nicole!’ Eddie shouts as he bursts into their next song. I am both smug and embarrassed in equal measure. Shout-outs are great, but embarrassing, and because it was from Luke I can feel my cheeks flushing. I’m hoping people will assume it’s because it’s warm in here.
The guys put on one hell of a show and, before I know it, they’re about to play their final song of the night.
‘So, this is our last song, guys.’ Eddie stops talking to swig his beer, his audience will wait. ‘Thank you so much for coming. We’re going to party here for a while afterwards so come and say hello, and then we’re going to a club. Where’s cool in Manchester?’ he asks in the faux-American twang he picked up somewhere along the way – I’m not sure where, he’s a Londoner. His question is met by a series of shouted-out suggestions from the happy crowd, none of which are audible.
After they play their final song and go off stage, the nerves really hit me. I’m going to have to have an actual conversation with Luke, and I can’t hide behind a Skype window while I think of cool and clever responses. I am so worried he’ll bring up the other night, but I’m even more worried that he won’t mention it at all.
After a quick trip to the bar for more drinks, I am chatting with Gemma when Eddie and Mark come over to say hello. Like the good friend that I am, the first thing I do is introduce Gemma to them, and if she is nervous then she isn’t letting it show because she is so cool. As the four of us chat, I feel two hands on my waist and my heart jumps into my mouth because I know who it is. I spin around in his gentle grip to see a slightly sweaty and unfortunately fully clothed Luke Fox. He pulls me closer for a hug and plants a kiss on my cheek.
‘Well hello, Miss Wilde,’ he says, with the usual slightly flirtatious tone to his voice.
‘Hello, Mr Fox,’ I reply – how very smooth of me.
Oh shit, is this awkward? Someone needs to say something.
‘You guys were awesome tonight,’ I tell him as the rest of the gang go back to their conversation.
‘Thank you,’ he says before pulling me close and whispering softly into my ear. ‘I think you and I need a conversation tonight, don’t you, Nicole?’
In my flat boots (which do not go with my dress at all) I have to lift myself up onto my tiptoes to whisper back to him, ‘That all depends on what you want to talk about, Luke.’ Now it’s my turn to sound flirtatious. Before he can reply, I am dragged back to the other conversation by the band’s tour manager who has now joined us. I was far too wrapped up in Luke to notice. Mick the tour manager hands me my laminated Access All Areas pass so that I can get in and out of venues without needing to be on the guest list or with a band member.
As we’re all stood chatting, I take the opportunity to think over what just happened with Luke. ‘We need a conversation’ doesn’t really mean anything, does it? No matter how flirty he was acting when he said it. I am snapped out of my thoughts by Eddie, who asks me something about the magazine. As I am answering, I feel Luke’s hand moving slowly down my back before resting softly on my bum. I’m trying to give Eddie an answer, but I feel like everyone can see it on my face, and I’m sure my cheeks are flushing again. My face cheeks that is.
Just as I start to relax, the band are called away to do some photos. Time for some more Dutch courage.
Gemma and I knock back a few more drinks as we watch the band chat to fans, pose for photographs and sign autographs.
Eddie is surrounded by girls, as always, and Luke and Mark have a fairly big crowd around them too, but Ben is sat to the side texting away on his mobile, probably to his girlfriend. It must be strange for him to go from being an unknown guitarist to being in a band like TFTR. I think he’s handled himself really well though. It’s great that he’s still with his girlfriend, especially considering the attitude towards women that the rest of the band seem to share. Having said that, Eddie has had several girlfriends, it’s just that unfortunately they have all been other people’s girlfriends.
I see Luke walking over, so I jump up from my stool, but the alcohol doesn’t seem to want me to and I stumble straight into him. He catches me and asks Gemma how many I’ve had.
‘Enough,’ I interrupt and I’m pretty sure I just winked.
‘We’re going to some club down the road, are you ready to go, babe?’ he asks, and I nod.
Gemma has work in the morning so she has to go. I drunkenly see her to a taxi and wave her off. I am caught by a pair of hands on my waist again, although they’re not quite as gentle this time. I turn around and see Mark, the sleazy bassist, and he looks like he’s had quite a bit to drink as well. I call him sleazy because, like the Plastic Rap boys, Mark has always had an eye for the younger ladies. Luke and I call him the torpedo, which Mark thinks is a pretty badass nickname, but what we’re actually calling him is the tour-paedo.
‘Nicole! Let’s go, we’re going to party!’ he slurs, his breath stinking of cider, as he grabs me by the arm. I’m not entirely sure who is holding up whom but he is stuck to me like glue all the way to the club. I don’t even get to talk to Luke on the way there. I’m going to have to up my game.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_9fd7bff4-22b0-5595-be1f-7cb425f22c77)
The Mix-up
Once we’re inside the club, everyone heads straight over to the bar and Mark pushes a bottle of something colourful and alcoholic into my hand, which I happily accept. He is attempting to make small talk with me, but I am too drunk to focus on a word he is saying.
Luke walks over to us and grabs my hand.
‘May I have this dance, Miss Wilde?’ he asks.
The DJ is blasting out pop music – they’d never play a band like TFTR in a place like this, which is probably why we’re here.
I am dancing without a care in the world thanks to the alcohol, and although it’s a fast song Luke pulls me close and stares into my eyes. There’s something about him that makes you feel like the most important person in the world when you have his attention and it’s making me feel all funny inside. Either that or it’s all the booze combined with the fast movements.
The music is too loud to talk so we just dance, and after what feels like hours of shamelessly flirting through movement Luke pulls me close and tells me he’ll be right back. He gives me a kiss on the cheek and disappears into the crowd.
I decide to try and find the other boys, rather than stand here dancing on my own. I spy Ben sitting on his own, still messing around with that bloody phone, and then I spot Eddie and Mark who are lining up shot glasses on the bar and filling them with something I can’t quite make out. Noticing me, Eddie calls me over.
‘Just in time, would the lady care for a shot?’ he asks.
‘Oh, I think I’ll give this round a miss, boys. I’m starting to sober up.’
‘Well it’s only 1 a.m., so we can’t have that,’ Mark insists as he pushes the tiny glass into my hand.
‘Why not, eh?’ I never did have much willpower, which is probably why I go on to drink another three. Any chance I had of sobering up is long gone.
‘Let’s dance!’ Mark shouts as he drags me to the dance floor. I don’t want to offend him but I’d rather go and look for Luke. I wonder where he’s got to.
Not wanting to hurt Mark’s feelings, I go along with it. Dancing with Mark is very different, he dances like a drunken maniac although that is probably because he is one. He is spinning me around, dipping me – I’m feeling very sick but I have to admit that I’m having such a good time. Maybe I’m misreading the signs, but I could swear Mark is flirting with me. Some of his dance moves are a bit raunchy and his hands are all over me. If I were perfectly sober, I’d probably be worried that people could see.
There’s still no sign of Luke and before I know it, Mark is dragging me to the bar for last orders where we have yet more to drink. I’m officially drunk, although not quite as drunk as Eddie, who throws his arms around me and tells me how much he loves me, licking my face before falling to the floor. At this point Luke reappears.
‘All right, Nic? You look a bit tipsy, babe,’ he says with a chuckle.
‘Whaaat? I’m fine,’ I protest, never one to admit that I’m drunk out loud.
‘Well Ed certainly isn’t, so we’re going to get a taxi back to the bus.’
He and Ben grab one of Eddie’s arms each and carry him outside. Feeling a bit unsteady on my feet, I lean against the bar.
‘We’ll see you outside,’ he calls back.
‘Don’t worry, mate. I’ll take good care of her,’ Mark calls after him, grabbing hold of my hand as we follow them out.
Standing around waiting for the taxi, my body starts to shake. I can’t really feel the cold but I must be freezing. Mark gallantly slips an arm around me and rubs my shoulders, so maybe he does have a sweet side after all.
Luke looks over at us and gives me a concerned look, is he getting jealous?
‘You two look cosy,’ Luke calls over.
‘Poor little thing is freezing,’ Mark tells him.
‘Yeah, it is a bit chilly out here,’ he replies, equally as cold. He gives me a strange look but then his gaze is redirected to my ear.
‘Nicole, you’ve got an earring missing.’
I put both hands up to the sides of my head and he’s right.
‘Shit, it must have come out when I was dancing, do you think they’ll let me back in to look for it?’ I slur as I wobble on my feet. I’m really regretting that last drink. I can’t think straight and I can’t walk straight. As I head towards the club, the taxi pulls up and Ben begins trying to squash Eddie inside.
‘I can only take four of you,’ the taxi driver calls out, noticing that there are five of us.
‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Mark calls back. ‘Luke, I’ll take Nicole back in for her earring and then we’ll walk back. It’s not far and we’re not that drunk, right, Nic?’
‘Right, Mark!’ I give Luke a thumbs-up – clearly not the actions of a sober girl. Luke reluctantly gets in the taxi and they drive off, leaving me drunk and alone with sleazy Mark, the tour-paedo.
‘Are we going to get my earring?’ I ask, actually remembering something that happened in the past ten minutes.
‘Yes we are,’ he says as he bends over and picks my earring up from the floor. ‘Oh look, there it is. I must have been standing on it.’
My few remaining sober thoughts are telling me that maybe something is up here.
‘Shall we get back to the bus then?’ he asks, grabbing my hand and dragging me in what I assume is the right direction.
I don’t know what time it is, but it must be after 3 a.m. as we make our way down the eerily quiet streets of Manchester.
‘I think Luke reckons he’s in there with you, he’s probably waiting for you on the bus with his jeans around his ankles,’ Mark informs me, like it’s a done deal.
I laugh and shrug my shoulders. It’s nothing to do with him, is it?
‘We could always stay out for a bit,’ he suggests.
‘And go where? Everywhere is closed!’
‘Not everywhere,’ he says, leading me down a dark alleyway, and before I have time to take in exactly what is going on, Mark is pushing me up against the wall and kissing me hard on the lips.
As we kiss I open my eyes and take in our surroundings. This particular part of the city is practically silent and it’s too dark to see anything, but I know we must be near some bins because they are all I can smell. Mark’s horrible beard (think Brad Pitt, circa 2009) is rubbing against my face, making it itch, and I can feel him carelessly tugging at my clothes. At that moment an ambulance goes flying past, illuminating the alley with its bright-blue lights and making me jump with its loud siren. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t fancy this guy – bloody hell, I don’t even like this guy most of the time. My vodka goggles are abruptly ripped from my face and I push Mark away.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks breathlessly.
‘We’d better get back to the bus. They’re going to wonder where we are,’ I insist, but he’s having none of it, grabbing my hips and moving closer, squashing me against the wall.
‘They won’t give a shit. Come on, just relax!’
I can’t relax because I really don’t want to do this.
‘Someone might see us,’ I say, wriggling free from his grasp and making my way back towards the street.
‘Nicole, come on,’ he calls after me, but I keep walking and eventually he follows me. We walk the rest of the way in silence.
Finally through the bus doors safe and sound, I make my way up the stairs to the living area and realise everyone is already in their bunk – apart from Luke. He’s sitting on the sofa, probably waiting for me.
‘You guys took a while, is everything OK?’ he asks, sounding concerned.
‘Everything is great, man,’ Mark tells him, giving him a wink that we all know the meaning of. Oh God, I want to curl up and die! I’m fairly sure getting it on with one of his band friends is not the way to his heart.
‘Oh, right,’ Luke replies. ‘Well, I’m going to get to bed. Night, mate,’ he says giving Mark a pat on the shoulder. And then he looks at me. His eyes look so red and tired. ‘Night, Nicole,’ he says, walking off towards the bunks without waiting for a reply.
‘Night,’ I call after him, but it’s too late. I’ve really blown it this time. All I want to do is get in my bunk and pray that everything will be OK in the morning when we’re all sober. What happened with Mark was nothing really, a few seconds of madness, or was it minutes? I have no idea.
Mark stands up and, presuming he’s going to his bunk, I stand up too. He puts his hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down.
‘I’m going for a piss, don’t go to sleep. I’ll be back in a minute. We’ve got unfinished business.’
He walks off towards the toilet. Now I really do feel sick. There’s isn’t even a hint of sexiness in his request and I don’t even want to be near him, let alone anything else. So I do what any girl would do in my situation, I fake it. I lie down on the sofa, shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I hear him come back and loudly whisper my name a couple of times to try and wake me, but I keep my eyes tightly closed and eventually he gives up and goes off to his bunk. Too scared to move in case he hears me, I pretend to be asleep on the uncomfortable sofa until tiredness takes over and I fall asleep for real.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_ca8e3015-3293-53ff-a2b4-36ab65969435)
The Morning After the Night Before
Oh my God, I feel terrible. I’ve got such a headache and I’m too scared to open my eyes properly in case the light makes it worse. The events of last night are bouncing around in my head, which is probably contributing towards my headache. How could I have been so stupid? Mark might have masterminded a pretty decent plan to get me alone, but I didn’t have to go along with it. Yes, I was drunk enough to get caught up in things, but unfortunately I wasn’t quite drunk enough to forget what happened. But nothing did happen really, did it? It was just a silly kiss. I kiss people all the time – although, not everyone I kiss tries to remove my underwear in the street.
I open my eyes ever so slowly and stare at the ceiling for a second, giving them chance to adjust. The bus is silent so I assume everyone else is asleep. Rolling onto my side I see that Luke is sitting on the opposite side of the sofa, in the exact same place he was last night. He’s staring at me and his face is totally expressionless. I must look terrible, not only did I have such an awkward, uncomfortable night but I didn’t take my make-up off and you can guarantee my post-club hair will be a frizzy mess.
‘Good morning,’ I say weakly.
‘Hello,’ he replies. ‘Rough night?’
‘Something like that...what time is it?’
‘8 a.m. Want to go get a coffee?’ he asks in an unusually blunt manner.
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll just smarten myself up,’ I reply shyly. I really didn’t want him to see me like this.
‘OK. I’m going outside for a smoke, I’ll see you in a minute.’ And with that, he’s gone.
As I slowly sit up, I take in my surroundings. The living area is just as messy as I am. Empty cans and bottles are littered all over the place, there’s the odd junk food wrapper and cigarette packets scattered around and I am being over powered by two smells – Lynx and sweat. Unfortunately the latter scent is the stronger one.
Grabbing my bag, I make my way to the tiny bus toilet. It’s impossible not to feel claustrophobic in these bathrooms, there’s barely enough standing room for one person. The small space consists of a toilet, a small sink and a shower head, none of which are very easy to use, even when the bus is stationary. I catch sight of myself in the dirty mirror and, just as I suspected, I have make-up all over my face and a hairstyle that would be more at home in the 80s. Thankfully my face wipes are in the bag that I actually remembered, although unfortunately I don’t have a hairbrush or any clean clothes with me.
Winding my long blonde hair into a bun on the top of my head, I begin wiping off my make-up – only to start reapplying it seconds later. With my hair looking crap, I make the decision to wear even more make-up to compensate. Standing back to take in my appearance in the tiny mirror, I can only conclude that I look like a groupie. My hair is messed up, my make-up is over the top and I’m still wearing my gig outfit – or maybe I just feel like a groupie after last night.
I am distracted from my thoughts by a noise from my phone. Taking it out of my bag I realise it is the low battery alert and guess what? I packed my charger in the bag I left at home. Now I’m feeling seriously out of my comfort zone. I’m horribly hungover, I look a complete state, I’m going to have to face both Mark and Luke today and to top it all off my only form of contact with the ‘real world’ will be cut off when my phone dies, which I’m guessing is going to be sooner rather than later.
As I leave the bathroom and make my way past the bunks, I can hear girls giggling, but I don’t remember seeing any girls last night when we left the club. Maybe they found their way on to the bus while Mark and I made our detour.
As I pass Eddie’s bunk, a girl climbs out and, looking at the state of her, I start to feel slightly better about the way I look this morning. She is definitely still drunk, her clothes are hanging off and she’s looking at me like I’ve just fallen out of a tree. She actually looks like she has just fallen out of a tree.
‘Becky,’ she calls, looking at me but failing to acknowledge the fact that I am standing there and that she is blocking my path. Becky sticks her head out of the bottom bunk which, as far as I remember, is Ben’s bunk, but he must be in one of the spares because, as we all know, Ben has a girlfriend and he doesn’t stop texting her for long enough to even talk to another girl. Becky looks equally as rough as her friend so I’m quite happy to walk off the bus after them, they can only make me look better. Neither girl speaks to me until we get to the bus door, which neither of them can work out how to open.
‘How the fuck does this open?’ Becky asks me politely. I don’t say anything, I just reach forward and open the door. Becky and her friend fall about laughing and hop off the bus. As they walk past Luke, they both say ‘Bye, Luke’ in unison, laughing hysterically as they stagger off.
‘Bye, girls,’ he says and then turns towards me. ‘They weren’t with me you know.’
‘No judgement from me,’ I tell him, holding up my hands. I’m hardly in a position to say anything, am I? Feeling self-conscious, I let my hair down. Knots or no knots, my long hair is like my safety blanket. You don’t find many girls with real long hair these days, just cheap-looking hair extensions. It’s got to a point where people come up to me to ask me where I purchased such realistic fake hair, and I always tell them my little-known but very simple hair tip: if you don’t get your hair cut, it will grow. Magic, isn’t it?
‘You know I care what you think,’ he says, throwing the end of his cigarette on the floor and stamping it out. ‘Shall we go get that coffee?’
I nod and follow his lead. I love Manchester, but with my rubbish sense of direction I find it impossible to find my way around, and it doesn’t matter how many times I visit.
‘Cold, isn’t it?’ I say in an attempt to break the silence with small talk.
‘It is. You should have put something warmer on.’
I look down at my dress. Not only is it totally inappropriate for strolling around town at this time of morning, but it isn’t doing much to fight off the chilly October wind. Oh, and there’s a rather unattractive booze stain down the side that must have happened last night.
‘I would have, but I forgot the bag with my clothes in. Don’t laugh!’ I warn him.
He does laugh, and it’s adorable. His eyes light up when he laughs and he’s got the most gorgeous smile.
‘What are we going to do with you?’ he sighs, putting his arm around me and I wonder if he’s doing it to keep me warm, or just to touch me.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You’ll freeze! Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ve got something you can wear,’ he says as he ushers me into Starbucks.
I don’t think I have ever been so happy to be in Starbucks. I haven’t been inside this particular branch before, but it all feels so familiar and I instantly feel more relaxed. I may have been feeling out of my comfort zone before but this feels just like home.
We grab our drinks and take a seat on the sofa in the only dark corner of the room, something my hangover and I are very thankful for.
‘So last night was a bit mad,’ Luke starts. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t see very much of each other, did you sleep on the sofa all night?’
‘I did. I was tipsy, I must have fallen asleep there,’ I lie.
‘I’m sorry you had to walk back with Torpedo.’
What I’m thinking is that I’m sorry I had to as well, but what I say out loud is, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
The conversation feels forced and awkward, and it worries me that I still have to spend a few more days with these people, living in such a small space. Yes, it’s a big bus, but not when you’re trying to avoid people.
‘Well you must have had a horrible night’s sleep, but don’t worry, we’re booked in a hotel tonight.’
Thank God! After one night of not sleeping in a bed I am absolutely desperate to climb into one, even if I don’t get to sleep, even if it’s just for a minute.
‘We’ve got three rooms booked, that’s all the hotel in Birmingham had. Management wanted to put us somewhere really nice though. They’re kissing our arses because the album is doing so well.’
‘Yeah, that’s great. I’m missing sleeping in a proper bed already.’
‘We’ve got three double rooms. Mick is going in with Ben, and Mark and Eddie usually share,’ he tells me, waiting for a few seconds before he finishes his sentence. ‘We could share if you wanted to?’
I hesitate and before I get chance to reply, Luke starts talking again.
‘Unless you don’t want to. I mean, I can go in with Mark and Ed, no problem.’
‘No, it’s fine. We can’t have the celebrities squashed in the same bed,’ I tease, secretly delighted.
‘Good,’ he replies, leaning closer to me and resting his hand gently on my leg. ‘Maybe we’ll finally get some time alone together,’ he lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘I can’t wait to get you on your own.’
I smile and sip my coffee. So I haven’t scared him off after all. There’s nothing like a bit of jealousy to keep them keen.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_409588a6-e5e4-50fb-a407-f08e7e570855)
The Road
Back at the bus, I wait patiently as Luke searches around in the luggage compartment for something warm for me to wear. The dress I am currently wearing was perfect for keeping cool at the venue last night, but in the harsh light of day the alcohol stain stands out a mile and my pretty little dress does not go with the big, clumsy Uggs I am stuck wearing – but hey, at least my feet are warm.
‘No clean clothes,’ Luke calls out, still waist deep in the luggage compartment. ‘Unless you want something butch-looking that stinks of sweat.’
I laugh, although to be honest I’m a bit distracted staring at his bum.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ I eventually call back.
‘There is this though,’ he says, holding up the biggest Two For The Road T-shirt I have ever seen.
‘We’ve sold a lot of merchandise this tour, which is lucky for us. Sucks for you though, only extra-large T-shirts left – but it’s got to be warmer than what you’re wearing now, right? It will certainly cover more skin...unfortunately,’ he adds with a wink.
Taking the huge T-shirt from him, I hold it up against my body, you could fit at least two of me in this, but I think I can make it work. Sadly I don’t think I can do anything about the fact that it is bright orange, though.
‘This will be perfect, don’t worry.’
I head into the living area. No one is around so I can get changed here if I’m fast. Mark and Eddie have gone to get something to eat and, as far as I know, Ben is still sleeping. I check that I am totally alone one last time before slipping off my beautiful dress and slipping on my huge, bright-orange replacement. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to wear one of these T-shirts, even if they are a fan of the band, and surely if a person needed a shirt this big, they wouldn’t want it to be bright orange?
As I predicted, I look like I am wearing a tent, but I’m not finished yet. If there’s one thing I learned during my short stint at Brownies (I was way too edgy to cook, sew and collect crap that I found on the floor in the park), it’s that you should always carry safety pins in your bag. Pulling all the extra fabric from both sides, I pin them together in line with the small of my back before rolling up the sleeves a little. My huge orange T-shirt now looks a bit more like a dress. A bright-orange, TFTR-branded dress that doesn’t really clash too much with my boots. To be honest, my gold accessories set it off quite nicely. I don’t look too shocking and I’m definitely warmer.
Stepping off the bus, I see Mark, Luke and Eddie smoking, and they look very amused by my outfit – probably because it’s free advertising for them.
‘Wilde, what did you do to it?’ Luke asks, astonished. ‘It actually suits you!’
‘That’s the thing with our Nicole, she can make anything look amazing, can’t you, babe?’ Eddie says, taking a final drag on his cigarette and flicking it across the car park.
‘You’re too kind, boys,’ I say, embarrassed but flattered to hear Eddie refer to me as theirs.
I look over at Mark, who is leaning on the bus. He hasn’t spoken to me today and I don’t think he’s going to either.
‘We’d better get a move on,’ Eddie says, jumping aboard the bus way too energetically for someone who drank so much last night. ‘Luke, get that lazy bastard Ben up, will you?’
‘I’m on it!’ he replies, giving Eddie a playful smack on the bum as he follows him up the stairs.
It’s just me and Mark now. Awkward. If he’s not going to say anything, then I guess I’d better try.
‘How are you today?’ I ask with a smile.
‘Fine, cheers,’ he replies without even looking up.
‘Good,’ I say undefeated. ‘Not many dates left now, I bet you’ll miss it when it’s over.’
‘Yeah, probably.’
This is impossible. I was hoping that last night he was either too drunk to remember, or at least too drunk to care, but I’m guessing he isn’t my biggest fan right now.
‘I’ll see you on the bus, yeah?’ I ask, but I don’t expect him to reply, and he doesn’t. Then, the second my foot touches the first step, he calls after me.
‘I hear you’re sharing a room with Luke tonight. There’s a shocker,’ he says with an extra helping of sarcasm, just in case I wasn’t picking up the vibes.
It’s my turn to do the ignoring. I could kick off, but where would that get me? He’s ‘the talent’ and I’d be off this bus in a flash if I got in his face. Anyway, I’m not going to let him ruin tonight for me. So what if I’m sharing a room with Luke? It’s nothing to do with him.
Back on the bus, I make my way to the living area. The guys already have a film on so I take a seat next to Eddie. Mark isn’t far behind, and he sits down opposite me. I’m so not looking forward to the drive to Birmingham, all squashed up together in this small space.
‘So, Nicole, this feature you’re writing on our tour, anything interesting to report yet?’ Eddie asks me and I wonder if Mark told him anything when they were alone together this morning.
‘Plenty,’ I tease. ‘You’re going to wish you hadn’t invited me.’
‘Don’t pull any punches,’ he replies. ‘What you looking so worried about, Boy Wonder?’ he adds, looking over at Ben. Ben is so quiet and, surprise, surprise, he’s already texting away on his phone.
‘Oi, I’m talking to you. Had fun last night, didn’t you?’ Eddie shouts at Ben – who looks embarrassed as hell right now – in a borderline aggressive manner.
That reminds me, I’m here to write a feature and not to groupie my way through the whole band.
Apart from the noise coming from the TV, and the odd text alert from Ben’s phone, the bus is so quiet. The roadies have their own transport and do their own thing, and Mick, the band’s tour manager, is also their driver so it’s just me and the boys here, and everyone is too tired or too hungover to chat.
Eddie yawns, stretching out his arms and wrapping one around me. As he does this, Mark sniggers and shoots me a filthy look. I’m finding it hard not to look at him because he’s sitting opposite me. I take my phone from my bag and I only get to tap a few buttons before it turns off. Bloody smartphones and their rubbish battery life. I’ll just close my eyes for a bit, anything that means I don’t have to look at Mark.
Awkwardness aside, I’m really looking forward to tonight. Sleeping in a nice hotel is always better than sleeping on the bus and it will be much easier to avoid Mark too. Why does drama follow me around where-ever I go? I still can’t get my head around what happened last night. We’ve never really been that close, not like I am with Ed and Luke, but he was hell-bent on getting close last night. One thing I do know for sure though, this won’t be mentioned in the magazine.
I wish I could text Emily. I’ll bet she’s sitting at my desk with her feet up. I left her in charge and under strict instructions to call me if anything eventful happened. Obviously she can’t do that now that my battery has died, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. I hope Vicky isn’t taking the piss – I still can’t believe she’s staying at Em’s house. Not only is she taking advantage of her good nature, but she’s making it impossible for us to chat like we usually do, she is always around.
How long does it take to get to Birmingham, seriously? This is the longest journey of my life. My head is resting on Eddie’s chest and I realise I must have dozed off for a bit. I have no idea for how long but we’re still not there yet. Mark and Luke are playing a video game, Ben is still texting and Eddie is asleep. The living area looks a little tidier, which means someone must have been really bored.
Mess aside, I adore tour buses. Try to imagine a really glamorous caravan. This isn’t the biggest one I’ve been on, but it has bunks for eight people so it’s still pretty massive. The living area is amazing, you can’t really tell that you’re on a bus. There’s a big table surrounded by sofas and blacked-out windows and a massive flat-screen TV on the wall with a DVD player and a PS3. The kitchen has everything you could need – I imagine, you know I’m not a very kitchen-y person. There’s a kettle, fridge, microwave and even an ice-maker. Just down the aisle is where the bunks are, four on each side. They’re not the comfiest beds in the world, but they’re certainly not the worst. I could so easily live on one of these buses – as long as I had more clothes with me, of course.
I’m still feeling tired and Eddie is so comfy to cuddle up to – despite the rock-hard muscles in his chest – maybe I’ll just fall back asleep until we get there.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_a8a04e7d-76e6-54a0-9831-c2acaacbb5c6)
The Slut
The sun is shining brightly in Birmingham today, it’s a shame it is so damn cold. As a result of waking up on the sofa yet again today, my back is killing me.
I don’t know where everyone is. Eddie is asleep next to me, although with me leaning on him I doubt he could move even if he wanted to, and Mark is still sat in the same place, glaring at me again. I wonder if he’s moved at all.
Thank God, we are finally here. I don’t know my way around Birmingham (don’t act like you’re surprised) but I’d really like to get to a decent clothes shop and get something to wear. The novelty is starting to wear off my bright orange tent-dress.
‘All right, Mark?’ I ask brightly, giving him another chance to put what happened behind us.
‘Yeah, fine. Worming your way in with Eddie now, are you?’
‘She’s been in with me for a long time, you grumpy fucker,’ Eddie says sounding half asleep, his eyes still closed.
‘I’m going for a shower,’ Mark informs us, storming off.
‘What’s his problem?’ Eddie asks me as soon as Mark has gone. ‘You knock him back last night or something?’
‘Not exactly,’ I reply, hoping that will be the end of it.
‘No way!’ he shouts, sitting up straight and suddenly wide awake. ‘You knocked him back? Tell me everything!’
‘It’s nothing really.’
‘I’m going to get you so drunk tonight, you’re going to tell me everything,’ he laughs.
‘Yeah right, you’re going to be less drunk than me? Remind me, who had to be carried to the taxi last night?’
‘Don’t put that in your magazine,’ he laughs. ‘The chicks won’t go for that.’
‘It was only today you told me that I could write about anything,’ I remind him.
‘Yeah, anything but that. Write about how you knocked Mark back though.’
He’s clearly finding this hilarious and I have to admit he’s cheering me up.
‘Oi, stop saying that!’ I nudge him in the ribs. As funny as it is, I don’t want anyone to hear – especially Luke.
‘Anyway, I’m beginning to think it’s the other guys who can’t handle their drink,’ Eddie tells me.
‘And why is that?’ I ask. This should be good.
‘Because when Luke and Ben carried me to the taxi last night, they dropped me twice,’ he jokes. ‘And as for Mark, he had to be smashed if he thought he had a chance with you.’
The minute the tour bus pulled up outside the venue, the plan was for me to go and pick up something to wear tonight. I’d hoped we’d be in the city centre but I’ve been told that we’re nowhere near a clothes shop of any description. I had a little wander down the road but, not wanting to get lost, I had to admit defeat. Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be...an orange. I am just going to have to come to terms with the fact that this is the outfit I will be wearing to the show tonight. I’m either going to look like a crazy fan or a skanky groupie and I’m not sure which is worse. This is also the outfit I am going to be wearing when I try to seduce Luke – a hideous orange T-shirt, branded with the name of his band. If he’s vain enough, that will probably do the trick. Eddie keeps making dirty comments about how he’s always wanted to get it on with a girl wearing his band’s merchandise. I think he’s joking but you never know with Eddie. Some poor cow will probably be dressing up in the works for him tonight.
We are ushered from the bus, into the venue and straight to backstage room, and what a dump it is. The dressing room is small, with no windows, bare walls and a bare floor. Walking over to the table where the food is laid out, I grab a can of Coke and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and plonk myself down on one of the battered old sofas, trying to ignore the suspicious stains on the cushions.
The boys are fussing around and getting changed, apart from Eddie who is studying the food carefully. He’s upset because apparently there are things that were on the rider that are not on the table, and he’s shouting at Mick to do something about it. It doesn’t matter that the table is covered with food and drink, what Eddie wants Eddie gets. Some poor venue worker is sent out to get the missing items. Maybe things would change if I were famous, but I can’t imagine kicking off because someone forgot to buy me some ketchup.
When it is finally my turn to have a shower, I make it snappy before slipping my T-shirt back on. Now that I’m hanging around the backstage area, I have to have my Access All Areas pass on show which leaves me no choice but to wear it around my neck. There’s no doubt about it, I look like a total nerd.
All alone backstage, I examine the table of food again. I didn’t eat much yesterday and I’ve decided that was the reason I got so drunk last night (although it probably had more to do with the fact that I just drank way too much). I make myself a sandwich and, suddenly starving, I take an over-enthusiastic bite. Just my luck, Luke walks back into the room as I’m struggling to chew a huge mouthful of food. I have managed to make myself look like an even bigger loser, but at least I’m making him smile.
‘Bitten off more than you can chew?’ he asks.
He doesn’t know the half of it. He waits patiently for a reply.
‘Done,’ I say victoriously, putting the rest of the sandwich to one side because suddenly I’m not that hungry any more.
‘Well check out that super-cool laminated pass hanging around your neck. Are you with the band?’ he asks. He’s obviously not done teasing me just yet.
Now is my chance. Toying with my lanyard, I give him my sexiest look, but as I take a step towards him I catch my foot on a guitar lead and fall into him, face first. Luckily, he catches me and doesn’t let go.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he says with a laugh, before leaning in closer and whispering into my ear. ‘At least wait until I’ve got you in my room.’
With his face still just inches from mine, Luke starts gently kissing my neck and it’s fortunate that he is still holding me because my legs instantly turn to jelly. Next thing I know, we’re kissing on the lips. I don’t want to sound all lame and high school again, but this is our first proper kiss and all that’s missing is the firework display. As he pushes me back onto the tatty old sofa, I wrap my legs around his waist. I can’t believe this is actually happening. Just as our kisses get heavier, I faintly hear the door open and things come to a sudden stop. I smile and try to look innocent, something that I have perfected over the years to get myself out of tricky situations. With that said, even the most innocent of innocent looks couldn’t make this situation look like anything other than what it is because my legs are still wrapped tightly around Luke’s waist and locked at the ankle. If it’s anyone other than Mark then I might be able to live this one down. I dare myself to look towards the door and, of course, it’s Mark. He glares at me before wandering over to fridge.
‘Not interrupting anything, I hope,’ he says, grabbing a can of something and plonking himself down next to us.
‘Actually, mate...’ Luke begins, but Mark doesn’t let him finish.
‘Good, because I need something to eat and Eddie needs you on the stage. Now.’
Luke looks at me and gives me that cheeky smile I love so much. He plants a peck on my lips and manages to free himself from my grasp, pulling up and fastening his jeans as he leaves the room – I didn’t even realise he’d undone them, what moves he has! It’s just me and Mark now, and as long as he doesn’t speak to me then I’ll happily keep out of his way.
‘I knew you were a groupie, but fucking hell. You could at least wait twenty-four hours between shagging each band member. Bloody slapper.’ he snaps at me.
I like to think I’m a pretty chilled lady, a lover not a fighter and all that, but I can’t keep my temper under control any longer and I snap back.
‘Excuse me?’ I ask, standing up and trying to subtly pull my dress back down over my lower half. ‘First of all, I haven’t shagged anyone,’ I yell. ‘And second of all, I was very drunk last night, and you knew that, and I didn’t want to kiss you, and you knew that too. OK, I might have kissed you back for a second but, as drunk as I was, I still came to my senses. Get the fuck over it!’
It’s amazing how a little bit of anger brings out my inner northern monkey.
Mark looks gobsmacked. Friend or not, I probably shouldn’t upset the celebrities, but how dare he call me a slapper? If I had shagged him down that alley, he probably wouldn’t be calling me any names.
‘Do what you want, write what you want, shag who you want!’ he shouts, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.
There are hundreds of girls queuing up outside the venue right now and, despite being a podgy arsehole in need of a good wash and a shave, he could probably have his pick of any of them. Why waste his time getting angry at me?
My eyes start to feel heavy and a huge tear falls from my right eye, rolling down my face and stripping my skin of every ounce of make-up that dares to stand in its path. I wipe it quickly and grab my foundation from my bag. I can’t let anyone see me crying.
I should be buzzing after kissing Luke. Instead, I am sitting in a backstage room, all on my own, sobbing because some C-list bassist just called me a slapper.
As I smarten myself up and retouch my make-up, I take yet another long, hard look in the mirror. Tonight is going to be a long night.
Chapter Twelve (#ulink_042e0de2-8d66-5854-9915-1aab99a0deb5)
The Skanky Groupies
After an awesome performance (including an encore), I am clapping and screaming just as much as any other fan in the room – maybe more so.
‘Are you their mascot?’ a handsome older man asks me, nodding in the direction of the hideous orange dress I forgot I was wearing.
‘Not exactly,’ I tell him with a giggle. ‘It’s a funny story really.’
‘I hope you’re going to tell me it.’
‘To summarise...’ I take a deep breath. ‘I am touring with the band, to write a magazine feature, but I forgot my bag and I spilt a drink on my pretty dress, so Luke, the drummer, was kind enough to give me this to wear.’
‘Wow, he must hate you!’ the stranger says, insulting my dress.
‘I know, right? What a bastard!’
He laughs.
‘You said you’re writing a feature on the band? I’m here to write a review for the local paper,’ he informs me.
‘Oops! Did I say he was a bastard? Because what I mean to say is what a wonderful band this is, and how you should definitely give them a good review!’
‘Don’t worry, I’m impressed. My name is Kenny by the way.’
‘Nice to meet you, Kenny.’ I shake his hand, ‘I’m Nicole.’
‘It’s nice to meet you too. Can I buy you a drink? We can swap notes.’
The band have only just finished and I know I’m going to be on my own while they do promo and meet fans, so I agree and we take a seat at the bar. Kenny seems like a nice guy and he’s a music reviewer for the local press so I’m sure I can learn a thing or two from him.
‘I think your friend is worried about you,’ Kenny tells me, gesturing towards Luke with a swift movement of his eyes.
I glance over and he’s right, Luke is giving us a filthy look.
‘He needn’t be worried, I’m more interested in him than I am in you, darling,’ he says with a wink.
Poor Luke, if only he knew.
‘I’ll put in a good word for you,’ I tell Kenny, winking right back at him.
‘Don’t worry about it, I think he’s got his eye on someone else in this room and I think we both know who that is.’
I smile, but then something catches my eye.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ I say, making my way over to the band.
The guys are surrounded by fans, but there’s this one girl who caught my eye because she is wearing the same orange T-shirt as me.
I tap her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you just hate it when someone wears the same outfit as you?’
‘It looks better on you,’ she replies with an unconvincing smile.
‘Are you trying to meet the band?’ I ask.
‘Trying.’ She holds up a poster. ‘I wanted them to sign this but it’s like I’m invisible.’
‘I’m a friend of theirs, I’ll get them to sign it.’
Taking the poster and marker pen, I start with Luke.
‘Can you sign this for that lovely girl over there?’ I ask him.
‘Sure. Who’s that guy you’re with?’
‘A journalist, so be nice,’ I warn him.
Ben signs the poster next, and thankfully he gets Mark to sign it too. If I’d asked, he probably would have told me to piss off. Now all I need is Eddie, and skanky groupies are his favourite thing so it’s going to be tough getting his attention. I push my way through a girl gang and hook my arm around Eddie’s. You’ve got to get territorial and show them who is boss, it’s the only way a girl can survive in this environment.
‘Eddie, baby, could you sign this for my friend please?’
‘Anything for you, Miss Wilde,’ he says, taking the pen and signing over his face on the poster. ‘Give me a kiss,’ he says before puckering up, and I’m not sure who he’s showing off for but I’m happy to help.
‘No way, I know where that mouth has been,’ I tease as I reach for the poster, but he holds it out of my reach and makes kissy noises at me.
I peck him on the lips and give the girls a friendly smile before taking the poster and making my way back towards my new friend.
‘Ta-da,’ I say, handing her the poster along with a plectrum, a wristband and some stickers. ‘And here’s a few bits from the merch stand too.’
Bless her, she looks so happy. It really bugs me that Eddie only gives attention to the girls he fancies. It’s girls like this who pay his wages, not the ones who are only here to try and sleep with him.
I head back over to the bar where Kenny is sitting.
‘I saw what you did. You’re a real sweetheart, aren’t you, Nicole?’
‘Oh, I do try,’ I say with a laugh, just as Luke appears.
I introduce them and Luke shakes Kenny’s hand. I’m surprised he isn’t doing more to soften up the guy who will be reviewing him for the entire city of Birmingham to read.
Luke tells me that they’ve got to head back to the hotel for an interview, which I’m guessing is my cue to say goodbye to my new best friend and go with them.
‘Kenny, do you want to come and have a drink in the hotel bar?’ I ask. ‘I want to hear more of your stories, and if these guys are doing an interview I’ll only have to sit and watch.’
‘I’d love to,’ Kenny replies, clearly annoying Luke by doing so.
‘Right, well we’re going now so if you’re coming get a move on,’ Luke tells us, so we knock back the remainder of our drinks and follow his lead.
Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_f557ec98-60f7-52db-824f-86b669fa648e)
The Crack
The hotel we are staying in is absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t ever afford to stay in a place like this on my own, but that’s the beauty of being a hanger-on; someone else always foots the bill. I know that I’m lucky to stay in such beautiful places, which is probably why I don’t take any of it for granted, unlike most of the bands I know.
Tonight we’re staying at the Hotel Regale. I’ve only just stepped through the door and I’m already in love with the place. Inside the lobby they have replaced one of the walls with a huge fish tank, which is absolutely mesmerising – even to an entirely sober person, I’d imagine. On the other side of the tank is the bar, which is where Kenny and I are heading. There’s no point in me going up to the room and hanging around in the background while they do their interview, I may as well be down here sucking Dutch courage through a sparkly straw.
As soon as they’re done, Luke is going to call Reception and have someone let me know I can go up. I’m suddenly really nervous again, but trying to keep it out of my mind while I’m chatting to Kenny. We’re swapping stories about interviews and gigs. I know I have some great tales to tell (not that I ever would outside of the loop), but I am so jealous of some of his stories. Yes, we’ve only just met, but we’re already sharing a little too much information – this must be how rumours start, with journalists getting tipsy and exchanging stories.
It isn’t long before a nice lady lets me know that ‘Mr Fox’ is waiting for me. It sounds so weird to hear Luke being referred to as Mr Fox, like he’s a proper adult.
I say goodbye to my new friend and we swap details before I make my way to the lift. I hang back for a few minutes, spotting Mick the tour manager getting in the lift with a gang of giggly girls. No prizes what, or should I say who Eddie is doing tonight. I’m so glad I’m in with Luke because I am so not in the mood for a party with giggly fan-girls – and I’m allowed to say that because I used to be one, I know how annoying we are.
The nerves finally hit me as I step out of the lift. Luke is standing outside the door waiting for me, and he must have had quite a bit to drink while they were doing their interview because he is wasted.
‘Shall we go in?’ he asks, fiddling with the keycard for the room. For some reason he can’t get the door to open.
‘Do you want me to do that?’ I ask.
‘I can do it,’ he snaps.
I thought maybe he was just nervous too, but he looks terrible. His eyes are red and watery, and between attempts to get the door open he is rubbing his nose. If we were in the ‘real world’, I’d probably think he was coming down with a cold, but we’re not in the ‘real world’, are we?
In a way, I am proud of myself, I’ve always been very anti-illegal drugs and there’s a huge amount of temptation in the biz. Well, I’ve never been tempted. Sadly, it looks like Luke has. I know a lot of bands are close friends of Mary Joanna (say it quickly), but I’m guessing Luke is on something much harder. So the rumours are true.
Finally he gets the door open, laughing as he falls through the doorway, only just managing to stay upright. Kicking the door shut, Luke puts his hands on the wall either side of me. I can’t move and I’m being forced to look into his eyes. I’d imagined this moment being intense, but this just feels all wrong. Not only that, but he looks a mess – sexy doesn’t spring to mind at all.
He starts kissing me but it doesn’t feel like it did earlier. Earlier was great, this is awful. I feel uncomfortable and his constant sniffling is making me feel kind of sick so I pull away.
‘Everything OK?’ asks the snotty-nosed man of my dreams.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘I’m fine, let’s just get on with it,’ he insists, sounding slightly annoyed that I stopped him.
‘Get on with it? You smooth-talker.’
He ignores my sarcasm and starts kissing me again, pushing me onto the bed. After five minutes of awkward – and to be honest, slightly snotty – kisses, he rolls off me and sits on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. He seems frustrated and he’s swearing under his breath, banging his hands on the bed like some kind of mad man.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ he shouts to himself. To be honest, I’m a little bit scared.
‘I’ll be right back, just going to the bathroom,’ I tell him. I don’t wait for a reply before heading into the huge bathroom and locking the door behind me. I close the lid on the toilet and sit down. The bath looks so inviting, I’d love to have a long soak with lots of bubbles, pull on one of the fluffy bath robes, eat room service, watch TV and then fall asleep in the big, comfy bed – rock and roll. With a wasted Luke waiting for me in the big, comfy bed, I can forget about relaxing tonight though, and even though I would rather sit here until morning, I know that I have to go back out there. I’m not sure what has happened to the man I was pretty much in love with, but that isn’t him sitting in there waiting for me and that definitely wasn’t him throwing me around the room before. It’s only a matter of hours since we kissed in the dressing room, but now it’s like that perfect kiss never happened. His mood is all over the place, one minute he is the life of the party, the next he’s losing his temper.
I check the time and realise I have been sitting in here for twenty minutes now. It’s time to face the music or, in this case, the musician.
It turns out I have nothing to worry about. Luke is fast asleep, the wrong way across the bed, with his jeans and his boxers around his ankles. His mouth is wide open and even though his eyes are closed, they still look so sore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so unattractive. A lesser woman than me would take a photograph – who am I kidding? If my phone battery wasn’t flat I’d probably snap a quick one, if only to remind myself that I never slept with a coke-head. That has to be the reason he’s acting like this, it makes too much sense not to be.
I can see his chest moving so at least I know he’s breathing, but I still don’t fancy sleeping in here with him. I grab the spare keycard for the room next door. I might as well head to the party, drink this out of my mind and try and get some sleep in there.
Opening the door to Eddie and Mark’s room (with ease, because I’m not high), I realise there isn’t a party going on because all is quiet. This room is much bigger than ours, and thinking I hear someone in the bedroom I walk though, only to be greeted by Ben’s bare arse and a rather embarrassed-looking girl underneath him. From the way he described his girlfriend to me earlier, I can safely say this isn’t her.
With no idea where anyone else is, I head back to the bar, plonk myself on a sofa and gaze at the fish. Maybe Eddie and Mark will appear, maybe Ben’s female friend will leave and I can go back up, or maybe Luke will come looking for me.
The past couple of days have been so weird. I thought these guys were my friends – I’ve know them for years, I’ve got drunk with them a million times before, I’ve crashed on the bus and in hotels with them countless times – but these past few days I’ve seen another side to them, their true colours or the side effects of fame? I just don’t know. Eddie, the one who I expect the least of based on past experiences, is the only one who has pleasantly surprised me, or at the least remained consistent.
I thought this was going to be the best tour ever and I thought things were going to work out great between me and Luke, but after several bad experiences with boys in bands you’d think I’d know better by now. I guess I just thought things were going to be different this time.
I don’t know how I’m going to face them all tomorrow. After this business with Luke, my argument with Mark and catching Ben in the act, I’ll be avoiding everyone apart from Eddie tomorrow. To be honest, all I care about right now is finding someone I know, getting to bed and getting some sleep. I’ll just wait here and hopefully someone will come looking for me.
Chapter Fourteen (#ulink_1f23854d-20ce-5c39-b14e-d5c6e9f49d8b)
The Accident
Another day, another night sleeping on another uncomfortable sofa – Nicole Wilde, this is your life.
This morning I woke up on the sofa in the hotel bar. I slept there all night. I’m lucky a member of staff didn’t wake me up and ask me to move because I really don’t know where I would have gone.
It’s 9 a.m. now. I’ve just been in the toilets freshening up and before I have chance to worry about what to do next, I spot Mick at the reception desk – he looks stressed-out.
‘Everything OK, Mick?’ I ask.
‘Nicole, I wondered where you’d got to. Everything is not OK – one minute.’
He’s on the phone, saying something about a hospital and cancelling the rest of the tour. All kinds of thoughts are running through my head. Was Luke definitely OK when I left him last night? I was sure he was breathing when I left him, but I’ll never forgive myself if something happened to him after I left. I wait patiently for Mick to finish on the phone and tell me what’s going on.
‘Right,’ he composes himself, exhaling heavily and running a hand over his bald head. ‘There was a bit of an accident last night.’ He stops again, this time to punch something into his phone. ‘At some point, while I was fast asleep might I add, a couple of the boys took the party to the hotel pool.’
I feel momentarily relieved because Luke hasn’t choked to death on his vomit, but someone has had an accident…
‘Eddie was pissing around on the diving board, he tried to jump in and hit his leg on the side of the pool. He’s at the hospital now, they say his leg is broken. We might have to cancel the rest of the tour. They’re giving him some pain relief and putting a temporary cast on, and then we’re heading back to London so he can see his own doctor. Are you coming back with us?’
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Portia MacIntosh
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 28.04.2024
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О книге: Nicole Wilde’s life is one of sell-out gigs, bunking on tour buses, trashing hotels and partying with the band all night long. But she’s not in the band. She is a music journalist, paid to be the world’s greatest groupie– and she loves it!Nicole has the party lifestyle – and the hangovers to prove it – but no one stops her in the supermarket on a bad hair day. Until she is papped in an incriminating position with recently married mega-star Dylan King of The Burnouts and the tabloids start hounding her. This isn’t so fun. Especially when her make-up is a mess and she hasn’t yet had a chance to clean her teeth.Dylan accuses her of ruining his marriage. His handsome PR agent, Charles, calls her a tart. She has to take gorgeous Luke from Two For the Road to hospital after a drug incident. And she’s dropped her mobile phone in the bath! Too much celebrity lifestyle for one week? Time to slow down and take stock? Maybe for somebody else. But Nicole Wilde is going to come out fighting!Don′t miss Portia MacIntosh′s linked novella Between a Rockstar and a Hardplace to see where Nicole started out!Praise for Portia MacIntosh′How Not to be Starstruck was impossible to put down, hilarious, fun, flirty and packed with excitement.′ – Victoria Loves Books′A brilliant story full of fun, gorgeous rockstars, big egos and great friendships.′ – A Novel Thought′if you are looking for a fictional tale of outrageous excess and the rock star life it is well worth a read.′ – Books with Bunny′For a Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl meets «Life of the rich and famous» -vibe: get yourself a copy of both Portia′s novels. Very, very enjoyable read and can′t wait for more!′ – M′s Bookshelf′I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is a must read for any one fancying a light heart and humour read, which can be devoured in one sitting.′ – Compelling Reads